The following is taken from a press release.

Skylogic Research, LLC, the leading research and advisory services firm for the commercial drone industry and owner of Drone Analyst®, today announced the release of its third annual 2018 Drone Market Sector Report examining worldwide drone sales, service providers, business and public agency users, and software services. This independent research, which is supported by DJI, DroneDeploy, DroneInsurance.com, and Trimble, finds a growing demand for businesses to use drone-acquired data in their day-to-day operations as well as other fresh insights on major drone industry segments.

“Our online market survey garnered over 2,500 respondents representing over 60 industries worldwide,” said Colin Snow, CEO and founder of Skylogic Research. “Our analysis yields 10 key insights that summarize the current state of the industry, plus detailed analysis of drone adoption by businesses and enterprises,” he added. Among the more interesting findings, according to Snow, are that, commercial drone fleet sizes are smaller than most people think. “If you believe the hyperbole, there are hundreds of thousands of drones in the airspace at the same time, but the survey finds that the average commercial user has just two drones that are only flying two projects a month and most of those flights consume less than three hours,” he added.

Among the many insights in the report, including the above, three are especially worth highlighting:

Professional use of drones is growing. Skylogic finds that almost three-quarters of all drones weighing over 250 grams are purchased for professional purposes—either governmental or business. This is up from last year. The commercial market is slowly shifting to more expensive drone aircraft. One-third of purchases in the last 12 months were for aircraft costing over $2,000. That’s up from last year. DJI continues to dominate the market and has made gains this year in every category from drone aircraft at all price ranges, to add-on payloads, to software. Survey data shows DJI is still the dominant brand for drone aircraft purchases, with a 74% global market share in sales across all price points.

The research offers further insights and analysis about:

Who’s buying what types of drones from which makers at what prices and for what uses.

How large the drone-based service providers are, and how they position themselves to their target industries.

Who the business users of drone-based projects are, and which industries have traction.

How much service providers, business users, and public agencies are using flight management, mission planning, and image processing software for drone-based projects.

The report provides the first comprehensive view of:

Critical industry drivers

Vendor and service provider market shares

Business adoption trends and issues

The report can be purchased here.