Global UAV production to triple

By

Staff

Senior Airman Blaine Aponte and Staff Sgt. Juan Lopez remove a tow bar from an RQ-4 Global Hawk prior to conducting maintenance operations April 15, 2014, in Southwest Asia. The Global Hawk provides intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications capabilities over Southwest Asia. Aponte and Lopez are members of the 380th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Russ Scalf)

Global production of unmanned aerial vehicles will triple over the next 10 years, according to a forecast by Teal Group.

Teal predicts that annual UAV production will soar from $14 billion per year currently, to $14 billion by 2025, with total production of $93 billion over the next decade. The military will account for 72 percent of spending, followed by consumers at 23 percent and 5 percent for civil aviation. However, civil aviation will grow the fastest as more airspace around the world is opened to UAVs.

The U.S. will account for 64 percent of worldwide military research and development spending on UAVs, as well as 38 percent of military procurement. “The market for UAVs looks very strong, increasingly driven by new technologies such as the next generation of unmanned combat systems, and the development of new markets such as civil and consumer drones,” said Philip Finnegan, Teal’s director of corporate analysis.