Abstract
Growing Demand Helps Narrow Gap between European and American UAV Markets
With unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) expected to better suit future
requirements, its global market is poised for phenomenal growth. Despite the
level of UAV performance increasing dramatically, it continues to be well below
mainstream customer needs, and applications are yet to reach maturity. Since UAV
technology still needs improvement, UAV manufacturers need to integrate and
develop several components simultaneously, to garner market share.
This Frost & Sullivan research analyses and forecasts future
opportunities and markets for UAV applications in the military, civil and
commercial sectors. It also aims to identify key European participants and
strategies for them to capture global opportunities.
Strategic Alliances and Core Expertise to Drive European Market
"Future battle space requirements are likely to focus on the kind of
capabilities a high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAV can deliver such as
electronic intelligence or target acquisition," says the analyst. By
joining forces, European manufacturers can make use of the United States'
competitive advantage and save significant amount of time. Moreover, European
countries have core expertise in aerospace and defence sectors that can be
transferred to the UAV industry. This, along with their good internal and
external industrial relations, is likely to boost the European UAV market.
The challenge in moving to the commercial market lies in making clients
visualise the attractive value proposition for their business. To achieve this,
manufacturers need to move closer to the market and interact with clients and
offer innovative strategies to capture the market.
End-User Education Vital for Commercial UAVs to Take Off
Many potential users are under the misconception that UAVs are too expensive,
hard to operate and not available as ready solutions. The fact that they are not
yet certified to fly in civil airspace adds to the negative perception. Users
need to be made aware of the long endurance, interoperability,
cost-effectiveness and the best intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)
capabilities of UAVs. Manufacturers also need to spare no efforts to educate
users on other environmental issues such as wildfire monitoring, illegal fishery
and oil spill discovery, which can efficiently be monitored by UAVs.
Civil legislation, increasing awareness and needs in homeland security,
certification, applications' investment and R&D cycles, market
awareness/acceptance and reliable cost/benefit studies are critical factors for
the success of this industry. Once end-users are made aware of the benefits of
UAVs, these barriers are expected to be removed and the UAV market can only head
for steady growth," concludes the analyst.
View Cart
