BEIJING, Jul 27 (APP): Chairman of, the World UAV Federation, Yang Jincai on Thursday offered cooperation in agriculture development under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and said that a partnership with the drone industry would be beneficial to the construction of the flagship project.
Agricultural development is one of the key cooperation areas, where Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can work in several aspects like breeding, disease prevention and control. That is to say, the partnership in the drone area will be beneficial to CPEC construction, he told participants of the Pak-China Conference on Building a Viable Drone Industry in Pakistan, here at Pakistan Embassy, Beijing.
He opined that drones were playing a role in reforming the world and these versatile flyers could increase productivity, improve operational efficiencies and harvest real-time data that ultimately alter the landscape of the global economy.
Yang Jincai said that UAVs/Drones, as a rising star, had gained great popularity around the world. It was reported that the global drone market has reached $37 billion in 2023. The US, China, and Europe are the main regions of UAVs whereas, in the US, companies like Amazon, Google, and UPS had started using drones for express delivery.
In China, drones are widely used in surveying and mapping, logistics, agriculture, and entertainment. In 2023, the civil drone market has exceeded $21 billion, and will maintain rapid growth in the next few years, he added.
Sharing data, he said that from 2020 till now, the number of buyers of drones on Alibaba had increased by 56.9 per cent year on year, and had increased by 89.9 per cent month-on-month, where demand exceeded supply. The top five countries by number of drone buyers are the US, Singapore, Mexico, Somalia, and Thailand.
China, as one of the world’s most important bases for this trendy unmanned industry, has been rising fast in 2023. Up to now, there are about 15,000 drone companies with a total output value amounting to $6.4 billion and 950,000 registered drones, UAVs flew about 386 million sorties, with a flight duration of about 16.689 million hours, he added.
He said that Shenzhen, which enjoyed the reputation of the World Drone Capital had more than 1,300, with an output value of nearly $11.3 billion, and consumer drones account for 74% of the global market share.
At the same time, China has formed a strong advantage in the field of UAV research, development and manufacturing. China’s drone sales account for more than 70% of the world, becoming a major manufacturer and exporter of the global drone market, he added.
The chairman said that at present, the drone market for agriculture, forestry plant protection, security and police, geographical surveying and mapping, and express logistics accounted for more than 70%.
Since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, drones and unmanned systems meet the needs of contactless delivery, maintaining a rapid growth of about 30%, he added.
He said that with the opening of lower airspace and improvement of relevant regulations, it was expected that by 2024, the global drone market would exceed $60 billion, and the Chinese market will reach $30 billion. China’s drone industry has been at the forefront of the world, cutting-edge in market share, R&D and manufacturing and application.
He said that the intelligence of drones largely needed big data for analysis and judgment, confirming correlations to predict occurrence. Also, UAVs played an important part in disaster rescue through aerial photographs and necessity delivery. They ensured the orderly progress of rescue and disaster relief, and avoid great losses.
According to statistics, China’s drone enterprises provide various services to more than 100,000 villages, towns and communities in 30 provinces, with about 250,000 plant protection drones in an area of more than 800 billion square meters.
He said that in different countries around the globe, drone use in educational settings had been on the increase. Drones, serving as funny educational tools, ignite the sheer curiosity in mind and exert a huge impact on student learning outcomes, especially in the subject of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
From gaining simple aerodynamic skills to advanced computer programming knowledge, educational drones are extremely adaptable to any learning level.
In the future, the key area for drone applications is drone delivery. Data shows that the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in China’s courier, express and parcel (CEP) market size will reach 13.39% during the period of 2023 to 2028.
This year, the market size amounts to $127.29 billion and will grow to $238.54 billion in 2028. And it is released that the average annual growth quantity has reached 10 billion, amounting to 110.6 billion in 2022. By 2040, drone delivery may account for 30% of all methods of parcel delivery.
