In the past 2021, the drone industry has achieved tremendous development, the technology has continued to mature, and its applications have continued to land. Now that 2022 has begun, and the Year of the Tiger is coming, how will the industry change in the new year? The World Wide Web Drone Channel interviewed industry insiders in various fields.
The consumer drone market will see a thousand yuan machine
Industry insiders have mentioned in many sub-sectors that the global "lack of cores" problem has also affected the drone industry. On the one hand, the firmness of hardware prices limits the further decline of product prices; on the other hand, it is more difficult for small manufacturers with small purchases to obtain goods. Such problems already existed last year, and one of them believes that this year, the situation will not worsen, but the status quo will be maintained.
Agricultural drones
These two points have a greater impact on consumer drones. A research and development staff of a start-up company who requested anonymity said that DJI’s product line is now very complete, ranging from professional aerial cameras that exceed 10,000 yuan to two or three. Thousands of entry-level products are available. DJI's professional aerial camera is a widely recognized productivity tool. Some fields regard its shooting ability as a rigid need, and other manufacturers are difficult to leverage regardless of the price; while entry-level products should pursue cost-effectiveness, but suffer from problems such as "lack of cores". Influenced, the cost performance of late-launching companies is not going up. If users want to take into account both the fun of flying and the shooting effect, the cheapest choice is DJI's Mini series. "Most consumers are very rational and will not pay for their feelings."
However, he said that for ordinary other manufacturers, there is still another opportunity: the thousand yuan machine. He said that next year, a number of companies will launch entry-level drones at the thousand yuan level and sell them directly to consumers through e-commerce platforms. Due to cost constraints, these models cannot be equipped with a gimbal and can only use electronic image stabilization. The video quality will be poor, but the flight performance is acceptable. He believes that there are several types of people who need such products: ① People who just like to fly, and many "flying friends" don't shoot things, but just like to fly; ② Give gifts, such as drones, which are very high-tech products. Face, but ordinary people still think it is too expensive; ③Beginners, some beginners will want to buy cheap models to practice their hands first.
Although the shooting level has been abandoned a lot, these models are not toys, and they also need to compete with the technical strength of the company. He said that these thousand-yuan drones also have GPS, and have the ability to return to home autonomously.
How do rat race in agricultural drones run?
In the past few years, a large number of small and medium-sized manufacturers were producing plant protection drones, but in the past two years, most of them have given up this market. Zhang Ruirui, director of the Aviation Application Technology Department of the National Agricultural Intelligent Equipment Engineering Technology Research Center, believes that it is not wise for small and medium-sized enterprises to compete with the functions of DJI and Jifei products. The top priority of other enterprises is differentiated competition.
He said that the release of DJI and Jifei 40kg payload products put a lot of pressure on other multi-rotor drone manufacturers. The 40 kg class is a difficult threshold, which puts forward higher technical requirements for motors, airframes, flight controls, etc., and significantly increases manufacturing costs. It is no longer possible to significantly improve the competitiveness of products.
