Not just military use: here’s how China is betting on drones in the civilian market
It's not just DJI, the world's largest commercial drone manufacturer: Beijing authorities are betting that the "low-altitude economy" will be the next engine of growth, according to a report in the Financial Times. Full details
Having become absolute protagonists in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict , China now wants to bet on civilian drones.
Chinese authorities are banking on the “low-altitude economy” – activities in airspace below 1,000 metres – as the next engine of national growth, according to a recent report in the Financial Times .
For years, according to the reconstruction of the British financial newspaper, the Beijing government has supported the production of drones with tax incentives, subsidies and the creation of industrial parks, according to what was reported by companies and analysts in the sector. Today, Beijing seeks to extend the use of these aircraft to new economic areas, turning them into a lever for development.
At the heart of this strategy is the Shenzhen drone network – home to the world’s leading drone manufacturer DJI – which authorities have dubbed the “sky city”: a laboratory for promoting the low-altitude economy.
Until now, the main customers have been the state and the military, but Chinese manufacturers are now trying to expand into the civilian market and find new commercial customers.
Meanwhile, the industry is also being watched closely across the Pacific. Regulations that have curbed commercial drone use in the U.S. are loosening, which could soon unleash a swarm of low-flying autonomous aircraft taking to the skies, Axios reports.
All the details.
CHINA'S LEADERSHIP IN COMMERCIAL DRONES
China dominates commercial drone production, accounting for 70-80% of global supply, according to analytics provider Drone Industry Insights, cited by the FT . China also has a commanding lead over research and development, accounting for 79% of drone patents approved globally last year, according to a report by London-based law firm Mathys & Squire.
DJI'S ROLE
As mentioned at the beginning, Shenzhen is home to DJI, the world's largest commercial drone manufacturer by revenue, as well as thousands of component suppliers. DJI alone has filed 64 patents out of a total of 7,890.
EXPERTS' COMMENT
“That’s a huge number,” said Andrew White, a partner at Mathys & Squire. “It really shows the scale of innovation that Chinese companies are doing in this space.”
BEIJING'S FORECAST
China's Civil Aviation Administration predicts that the market size of the low-altitude economy, which includes other innovations such as flying cars, will grow fivefold to RMB 3.5 trillion ($490 billion) by 2035, the Financial Times reports.
SECTORS THAT USE DRONES
According to 2022 data from the Guanyan Tianxia Data Center, cited by the FT , about a third of industrial drones in China are used in agriculture and forestry, while more than 20% are used for geographic surveying. Other popular uses include patrol operations, security monitoring, firefighting and disaster relief.
“With the country promoting low-altitude airspace, many people want to get into this industry,” Wu Yudong, operations chief at agricultural drone maker JIS, told the Financial Times .
HOME DELIVERIES VIA DRONES
The FT also notes that Meituan, China's largest food delivery platform, received national approval in April to use drones to deliver takeout food to kiosks in several cities. Moving small-package deliveries into the sky could help reduce traffic congestion and tailpipe emissions.
Rivals JD.com and Ele.me have also started using drones on some delivery routes.
MEANWHILE IN THE USA…
In the United States, for example, just last week, Walmart announced that it would expand drone deliveries to five more cities. Last March, American e-commerce giant Amazon resumed drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona, after having stopped the program earlier this year.
The company founded by Jeff Bezos suspended Prime Air deliveries in January, following the release of a software update to fix problems with the drone's altitude sensor caused by dusty Arizona air. Amazon has set a goal of delivering 500 million packages by drones per year by the end of the decade.
THE MAIN CUSTOMER IS THE ARMY
Back in the country of the Dragon, while many manufacturers are adapting the technology for civilian use, the military remains their main customer, several companies said at the Unmanned Aerial Systems Expo, China's largest trade fair for commercial drones, held last month.
According to the Mathys & Squire report, the National University of Defense Technology has filed 73 patents for drones in the past two years, although the number of applications for military technology is likely higher because patents related to national security are not made public, Andrew White, a partner at Mathys & Squire, noted at the Ft .
BUT WE ARE AIMED AT THE CIVIL MARKET
So if military use is the main one at the moment for drones, manufacturers are aiming to conquer the civilian market as well.
Li Sijia, project manager at Huahang High-Tech Beijing Technology, which sells 90 percent of its carbon-fiber-bodied drones to military customers, told the Financial Times it hoped to expand the civilian market. But high prices for its products and China's strict export controls currently limited its potential for widespread deployment.
“Why would a company like ours, which produces products for military use, participate in a civil drone fair? The first reason is survival,” Li said, adding that profits were “not very high” given the intense competition in the industry.
“The second reason is that we want to bring these products to the civilian market.”
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/uso-civile-droni-cina/ on Sun, 22 Jun 2025 04:03:12 +0000.