Here's what we know about Xiaomi's first drone that it will unveil this week
PWC says drones could save businesses 7 million worldwide
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Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi will unveil its first drone at a live streaming event on May 25, The Verge reported.
A post published to Xiaomi’s company forum indicates that the drone will be a quadcoptor with a spherical camera on the bottom of the drone that looks like it may be able shoot 360-degree video.
The Xiaomi drone looked remarkably like Hong Kong-based Yuneec’s Typhoon H drone, raising the question of whether the drone could be a collaboration between the two companies. However, Xiaomi’s smartphones have very similar designs to its competitors; it doesn’t sell smartphones in the US for fear of patent lawsuits.
Very few details about the drone have been released, but Xiaomi briefly released a smartphone app for a drone that included 4K video recording earlier this year. It has also filed a patent for a quadcoptor drone that can be controlled by a connected wristband like Xiaomi’s Mi Band fitness tracker.
It will also be interesting to see what markets Xiaomi will sell the new drone in. The US is the biggest market right now for consumer drones, particularly for camera drones that can cost several hundred dollars. Xiaomi sells some devices here in the US, including fitness bands and its new Mi Box media streaming device.
The company could look to make a big splash with drones in the US, or it could offer a cheaper camera drone priced for the Chinese market where the consumer drone market is very nascent. This is the same playbook it has used in the smartphone market, where Xiaomi sells very cheap phones for the domestic market that have many of the characteristics of high-end smartphones.
Drones turned the corner in 2015 to become a popular consumer device, while a framework for regulation that legitimizes drones in the US began to take shape. Technological and regulatory barriers still exist to further drone adoption.
Drone manufacturers and software providers are quickly developing technologies like geo-fencing and collision avoidance that will make flying drones safer. The accelerating pace of drone adoption is also pushing governments to create new regulations that balance safety and innovation.
Safer technology and better regulation will open up new applications for drones in the commercial sector, including drone delivery programs like Amazon’s Prime Air and Google’s Project Wing initiatives.
Jonathan Camhi, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed drones report that forecasts sales revenues for consumer, enterprise, and military drones. It also projects the growth of drone shipments for consumers and enterprises.
The report details several of world’s major drone suppliers and examines trends in drone adoption among several leading industries. Finally, it examines the regulatory landscape in several markets and explains how technologies like obstacle avoidance and drone-to-drone communications will impact drone adoption.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:
- We project revenues from drones sales to top $12 billion in 2021, up from just over $8 billion last year.
- Shipments of consumer drones will more than quadruple over the next five years, fueled by increasing price competition and new technologies that make flying drones easier for beginners.
- Growth in the enterprise sector will outpace the consumer sector in both shipments and revenues as regulations open up new use cases in the US and EU, the two biggest potential markets for enterprise drones.
- Technologies like geo-fencing and collision avoidance will make flying drones safer and make regulators feel more comfortable with larger numbers of drones taking to the skies.
- Right now FAA regulations have limited commercial drones to a select few industries and applications like aerial surveying in the agriculture, mining, and oil and gas sectors.
- The military sector will continue to lead all other sectors in drone spending during our forecast period thanks to the high cost of military drones and the growing number of countries seeking to acquire them.
In full, the report:
- Compares drone adoption across the consumer, enterprise, and government sectors.
- Breaks down drone regulations across several key markets and explains how they’ve impacted adoption.
- Discusses popular use cases for drones in the enterprise sector, as well as nascent use case that are on the rise.
- Analyzes how different drone manufacturers are trying to differentiate their offerings with better hardware and software components.
- Explains how drone manufacturers are quickly enabling autonomous flight in their products that will be a major boon for drone adoption.
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