China's drone development surges in 2024

China registered about 608,000 new drones in the first half of 2024

 

Meanwhile According to the new market research report “Carbon Fiber UAV - Global Market Share and Ranking, Overall Sales and Demand Forecast 2024-2030”, published by QYResearch, the global Carbon Fiber UAV market size is projected to reach USD 14.83 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 13.2% during the forecast period.

 

Data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) showed that about 608,000 new drones were registered in the first half of 2024, a 48% increase from the end of last year; and drones accumulated 9,816,000 hours of flights, an increase of 134,000 hours from the same period last year. China's low-altitude economy market is expected to reach 1.5 trillion yuan by 2025, and is expected to reach 3.5 trillion yuan by 2035.

 

In recent years, the global low-altitude economy industry has seen rapid development with the development of technology and the expansion of applications.

 

In China, the development of the low-altitude economy industry has also received strong support from the government. The government has successively introduced a series of policies to increase support for the low-altitude economy. For example, during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, the average annual growth rate of China's low-altitude economy manned aircraft industry has reached 10%, and the drone industry has risen out of nowhere and developed even more strongly, with an average annual growth rate of more than 20%, and it is becoming a new growth point for the national economy.

 

Since the beginning of this year, all parts of the country have intensively introduced favorable policies related to low-altitude economy, and the development of the industry is expected to accelerate. Shanghai proposed to build Shanghai low altitude economy industry innovation highland, commercial application highland and operation service highland, the core industry scale to reach more than 50 billion yuan.

 

In recent years, with the maturity of the satellite positioning system, the improvement of electronic and radio control technology, and the emergence of multi-rotor UAV structure, the UAV industry has entered a rapid development stage, and is widely used in many fields such as construction, petroleum, agriculture, and public utilities.

 

The UAV industry chain consists of four first-level links, namely, UAV system modules, complete aircraft products, anti-UAV equipment, and UAV industry services.The upstream of the industry chain mainly includes UAV design and R&D and the production of key raw materials, such as titanium alloys, aluminum alloys and other metal materials and carbon fibers and other composite materials; the midstream is the manufacturing of complete UAVs, including the design and production of flight systems, ground systems, and mission payload systems; and the downstream is the application scenarios of UAVs, such as military reconnaissance, aerial filming, agriculture, forestry and plant protection, and disaster rescue.

 

UAVs can be categorized into military and civil according to their application areas. For military, UAVs are categorized into reconnaissance aircraft and target aircraft with carbon fiber shells or frame and a lot of carbon fiber parts, carbon fiber  For civil use, UAV+industry application is the real need of UAV, also the carbon fiber very popular in this industry such as carbon fiber tubes and carbon plates which can saving weight; the current application in the fields of aerial photography, agriculture, plant protection, self-timer, express transportation, disaster rescue, observation of wildlife, monitoring of infectious diseases, mapping, news reporting, electric power inspection, disaster relief, film and television shooting, manufacturing romance and so on has greatly expanded the use of the UAV itself, and the developed countries are also actively expanding the industry application and the development of drone Technology.

 

The value of drones lies in replacing human beings to complete aerial operations, and its most direct development driving factors mainly come from two aspects: (1) military field, replacing manned aircraft on the battlefield to reduce casualties and cope with extreme conditions; (2) scientific research and industrial field, using drones to operate when carrying out life-threatening probes and researches, carbon fiber has great performance in strength and anti-weather aspect.

 

With the gradual maturation of drone technology, civil drones have been widely used in daily life.In 2023, the cumulative flight hours of civil drones exceeded 23 million. The CAAC has approved the establishment of 17 civil unmanned aerial test areas and 3 test bases, covering scenarios such as urban, island, feeder logistics, and comprehensive application expansion.

 

The application of drones in various industries is ubiquitous. In recent years, the momentum of the development of the drone industry has been rapid, so drones are favored and sought after by many industries, and have a large market share as well as market share.

 

With the low altitude economy heat enhancement, the development of drone-related companies in the first half of the year has also received market attention.2024 In the first half of the year, the performance of companies with drones as their main business or important business diverged significantly. A number of leading companies saw growth in performance.

 

The application of carbon fiber in drones will usher in big development opportunities, meanwhile some challenge as below:

C1: Carbon fiber drones require high-precision design and manufacturing technology. The research and development of these technologies is difficult and requires a large amount of capital and human resource investment.

C2: The cost of carbon fiber composite materials is higher, which will affect the cost of drones. In addition, since the development of carbon fiber drones requires a lot of human resources and time, this also increases its cost.

 

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