For two consecutive years, the consumer-grade UAV market has slowed down and capital is shifting from a concept-following investment to a value-oriented rational investment. Industry-grade UAVs with higher commercial value are selected by entrepreneurs.
However, the scene adaptability, after-sale protection, battery life and so on, to a certain extent, limited the development of industry-level UAV.Industry insiders analysis, the industry UAV technology and the market have not yet laid a solid foundation, although the prospects Optimistic, but before the commercial value of the outbreak, businesses and capital are subject to time experience.
Great Leap Forward
UAV into public view, from the "Dad where to go" and other variety shows debut, in February 2015, singer Wang Feng birthday party at Zhang Ziyi with a drone to send a wedding ring news is even more attractive Ordinary people's attention.
Starting from 2015, as the technology of consumer-grade multi-rotor UAVs has become more mature, the price will also be 'very close to the people', and around 3,000 yuan, you can buy a HD aerial drone that can fly up to a height of 500 meters.
Also this year, the rise of UAV in Xinjiang's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region drove the explosion of the consumer-grade UAV industry. For a time, there was a rush of people and capital influx. "As long as UAV is written on the business plan, Whether you know the technology or not, you get almost an angel wheel, "one industry official described the investment boom.
According to application areas, civil UAVs include consumer and industry-level categories, of which, industry-level (also known as industrial or commercial) can be applied to agriculture and forestry plant protection, power patrol, oil pipeline inspection, logistics and express delivery , Medical rescue and many other scenes, and consumer-level UAV is currently the most widely used application scenarios are more familiar to you aerial, entertainment.
'Starting in 2014, I think the industry has run a bit too fast.' 'From research and development to re-establishment to sales, Zhang Lei, who ran almost the entire drones chain, felt the industry's sense of smell faster than the market.
This trend of unmanned aerial vehicles is more reflected in the technical source of the school, came from Northern Airlines Xinghan capital operations director Zhang Hao came back to his alma mater, found Xuedi school business start-ups, 'can not wait to do half drone. '
When Zhang Lei left Zero Intelligence to start a business, he set up a team of three to four people, which is equivalent to a team that large companies went out to work in. For almost six months, he found that this thing was not as simple as imagined. ' At the moment do not know what financing. 'And at the time entrepreneurs like Zhang Lei, by no means a minority.
'The new third board UAV' Yi Watt's founder, Zhao Guocheng 'crazy' to describe the 2015 UAV market.
The pace of capital into the drone market also gradually accelerated, according to "Civil UAV Market Analysis Report" shows that venture capital into the UAV manufacturers and UAV application developers more than doubled in 2014.
In the same year, Xinjiang completed a 75 million U.S. dollar B round of financing, with a valuation of up to 8 billion to 10 billion U.S. dollars. According to media reports, there are more than 300 UAVs in Xinjiang, the fastest-growing market in the country. Enterprises, annual sales of over 200 billion yuan.
A UAV market researcher Li Da (a pseudonym) on the Beijing News reporter said with a smile, 'in Shenzhen, one hundred or two hundred meters will be able to find all the parts of the factory production of unmanned aerial vehicles.'
Case of cold, differentiation
The change came at the end of 2016. The continuous entry of a large number of low-cost homogenization drone made the market competition more stingy, and the long cycle of market payback gradually aroused the enthusiasm of capital.
The early arrival of ceilings and the absolute dominance of DJI left the consumer-grade drone bubble bursting out of steam with start-ups that lacked core technology and capital blessing.
'At least nine unmanned aerial vehicles on the market are in Xinjiang, other brands of unmanned aerial vehicles can not buy.' In Zhang Lei, start-ups in the consumer level of the track is unable to compete.
Once the industry leader such as Zero Intelligence, was involved in layoffs at the end of 2016. Several zero-year old employees recalled that the company has been layoffs, it is almost overnight thing.
At that time, Zhang Lei, who worked in the drone field for many years and also was a zero-consumption-level UAV dealer, said that since the zero-degree period, he has "taken the second line" instead of focusing on core algorithms.
The same is the star of consumer-level wave of enterprises, more than a month ago in the circle of people was drying out in a circle of friends was debt-seeking photos: the banner in front of its office wrote 'Canton billion loans owed 19 Month is not yet returned.
'Radical strategy, continuous release of new products', 'no core technology', 'failed to timely transformation', so many industry insiders concluded the crisis of billion airlines.
In addition to internal problems and foreign aggression, many industry crises caused by 'Black Fly' threats to aviation safety events have cast a shadow on consumer-grade UAVs since the second half of 2016.
Regulatory policy began to tighten due to the unfavorable impact of UAV 's Black Fly - Civil Aviation Administration of the Pilots issued the Regulation on the Operation of Light and Small UAVs and Regulations on the Management of Civil UAV Drivers. Airworthiness Division promulgated the "Interim Provisions Concerning the Administration of Civilian UAVs" and the "Provisions on the Administration of Registration of Real-name Civil Aircraft UAVs".
In 2016, DJI saw a slight decline in sales in China, and even in Xinjiang where consumer drones gained an overwhelming advantage, it also made new revisions to the market and decided to move towards the UAV market Subdivide the area.
In fact, the Xinjiang has already started the layout of the industry-level UAV. 'Southern Power Grid Line patrol machine, even if Xinjiang does not account for 80%, 60% is certainly there.' An industry source said.
'Today, the number of drone companies in Shenzhen is about 50, of which there may be more than a dozen consumer-grade left.' Li Da told the Beijing News reported looking for a Chinese maker reporters.
Recently, Starham Capital Investment Director Zhao Hao saw a lot of drone startup BP, but 'has not been concerned about consumer-level dynamics' This can be regarded as a microcosm of the current trend of investment institutions. The market slowdown, Insufficient competitiveness of small companies, at this stage, Zhao Hao is more optimistic about UAV industry-level development.
'After the tide of investment, the competition for (unmanned aerial vehicle companies will be a contest between technological strength, industrial chain management and the amount of funds.' 'Zhao predicts that in 2018 there will be more consumer-grade drone business failures or a restructuring of their choice.
'The main reason is the temporary weakness in consumer demand growth, consumer-level drone product experience and consumer expectations there is a gap.' Zhang Xing, director of capital operations in Xiamen Star, consumer-level UAV did not cut the real high-frequency Just Business scene, an industry-level drone outbreak may be faster than the consumer level.
Business scene
In fact, the industry-level racetrack has long been a player, Yi Watts UAV in 2010 aimed at the industry level.
"Unlike the consumer-grade UAV market, the industrial UAV market is in the Blue Ocean era." In the view of Zhao Guocheng, the founder of YiWatt, the UAV industry has further commercial application in various segments and has great commercial value And market size.As the industrial market mainly focuses on the technical performance and industrial application of the aircraft, it requires repeated communication and continuous improvement programs with industry customers in practice, and therefore has strong customer stickiness and barriers.
The consumer-level UAV towering, but also made technical reserves for the industry-level UAV.According to the Chinese intellectual property network data show that from June 2013 to June 2016, the national number of UAV patents in the short In the short term of three years, the five key technologies in the UAV industry, including body structure design, body material technology, flight control technology, wireless communication remote control technology and wireless image return technology, have been greatly improved.
And did the industry-leading UAVs find a business scene that truly creates value? What can UAVs do?
'In addition to having children, you can think of all industries, UAV can combine.' After a deep understanding of the industry, you will find Lee Da remark is not a joke.
In addition to the logistics application, which has become more and more known recently, UAVs have emerged in fields such as agricultural plant protection, power inspection, 3D mapping, security, medical treatment and even haze control and drug control.
'Impressed is a drone exercise at a public security bureau some time ago.' Li Da said that during the exercise, 8 unmanned aerial vehicles intercepted suspects driving and fleeing through the towing spikes of the airborne vehicles and transmitted in real time Back to high-definition images and positioning.After the suspect abandoned the car to flee the crowded area, the UAV also blocked the network and the suspects temporarily lost the ability to respond by firing a detonation bomb. "Even if it's just an exercise, To the UAV in the field of security prospects. 'Li Da emotion.
In the field of fire protection, the main purpose of the UAV is to observe it. 'Through infrared cameras, finding fire points in thick smoke and throwing fire-extinguishing shells to control the fire.' Li Da said that there is little or no effective solution to forest fires so far High-rise fire program is of great significance.
In agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance and the Civil Aviation Administration of China recently issued a circular announcing the pilot projects to subsidize planting UAVs in 6 provinces and cities such as Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong and Chongqing in 2017. This means that the industry is looking forward to years of Plant protection drone will also have more space to spray pesticides, sowing, fertilizing and so on.
Worries, the future
Industry-class transition, almost the entire circle reached a consensus in this increasingly hot blue ocean, many companies how to stand out?
'There is a core technology that needs to serve the UAV industry.' "Zhao Hao, Director of Capital Investment, Starhan, added artificial intelligence terminals, such as judging hidden dangers autonomously during the cruise, and greatly boosted the capability of the entire UAV The new three board UAV business concept of defense is a good example.As the only UAV anti-drug flight service provider, the concept of defense established a system of UAV geographic information database to provide unmanned aerial vehicle as a carrier Aerial survey, interpretation, ground verification as one of the overall service program.
In addition to the core technology, deep coupling with the service area is also considered the key to success of UAVs in the industry. Zhang Hao, Director of Capital Operation, Xinghan, believes: "The industrial chain is more scalable in the upper reaches." The future success of civilian unmanned Machine companies need to provide end-to-end, total solutions from hardware, software and cloud infrastructure (storage and analysis) to customization.
Can quickly roll out the localization of after-sales service, which may be the future industry drones the biggest barrier in a fly Zhi-controlled sales in the work of Zhang Lei know, the industry-level UAV sales are sub-regional. The machine is broken, I can send it back to the headquarters for repair, and so on for half a month is no problem, but if it is a plant protection drone, the cycle of pests and diseases will be only 10 days and it will take 15 days to send it back to the headquarters for repair. Quick response is vital to the industry.
Based on the localization of sales is difficult to quickly expand in the country, Zhang Lei believes that the industry short-term UAV will not be the same as a consumer-level there is a dominance.
UAV industry to industry-level restructuring seems to be in full swing, but not like the consumer-level in 2015 as exponential growth, the overall stage of accumulation in the pre-outbreak.
The reason, Zhang Lei believes that 'investors can not see a more detailed future'.
To plant protection UAV, for example, before joining a fly intellectual control, Zhang Lei forget an account: UAV spraying pesticides, the cost per acre is 4 yuan, the proceeds of 20 yuan, one person a day can spray 300 to 500 acres of land. '' In so doing, the profit is very rich. '
However, Zhang Lei did not expect that the technical difficulties of China's landless state, operation level of flyers and obstacle avoidance have left almost no advantages in terms of cost for plant protection UAVs.
Obstacle Avoidance is crucial to the flight of mainstream UAVs, but existing solutions are still in the prototyping stage and to ensure public safety there is a need to improve the sensor, sensing algorithm and UAV design. The battery life of around 30 minutes Become an industry-level UAV in the near future difficult to properly solve the plight.
After observing the market for two years, Li Da also believes that there is not enough industrial-type scene to adapt and that the "big industry has not yet fully opened up". UAVs in the industry have not yet laid a solid foundation in both technology and market.
Industry drone in the end is not a good business worth investing? Sequoia Capital founder Michael Moritz's answer is: 'UAV is the future trend, after decades, unmanned aircraft like trains, cars as common.' Just do not know how many companies survive the long burn cycle, do not know how many investors are willing to wait until the day it makes money.
Beijing News reporter Cai Hao Shuang