Lucintel has published a new market report that shows a bright future for the UAV industry.  The data shows many opportunities in civil and military applications, with the global industry expected to expand at a CAGR rate of 7.1 percent by 2020.  The growth is forecast to come from a demand in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance missions and missions preformed without risk to human life.

In addition to these uses, Lucintel predicts an increase in UAV growth in the fields agriculture, consumer product delivery and wild life security and initiatives.

Within the UAV industry, military application of UAV is expected to remain the largest due to increasing usage of UAV in ISR missions, homeland security, and border security. UAVs have been in service for several decades, but got high exposure in the last decade due to its high-profile use by US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. In terms of UAV type, Small, MALE, and HALE are the three types of UAV. MALE UAV is expected to remain the largest segment by value due to acceptability of MALE UAVs in most of the operations. It can fulfill the need of long endurance operations at lower cost.

North America is expected to remain the largest market due to the high procurement by US government. APAC and ROW are expected to witness highest CAGR with 11.6% and 12.4% respectively, over the forecast period due to increasing defense budget of developing economies and indigenous development of UAV.

The full report answers many questions, such as: which product/segments will grow at a faster pace and why? and what are the business risks and threats of this market?  It also features topics like market size estimates and trend and forecast analysis.