In 2020, worldwide shipments of Internet of Things (IoT) enterprise drones (defined as flying drones) will total 526,000 units, an increase of 50% from 2019, according to Gartner. Global shipments are forecast to reach 1.3 million units by 2023.
“The construction sector is an early adopter of drones, which causes construction monitoring to be the largest use case by shipments worldwide across the forecast,” said Kay Sharpington, principal analyst at Gartner. “Shipments are estimated to reach 210,000 drones in 2020, and more than double by 2023. Drones are taking over tasks such as site surveying and earthworks management as they are faster and safer to carry out with a drone than on foot.”
The insurance industry is the second largest use case by shipments with 46,000 drone shipments forecast for 2020. Shipments are expected to nearly triple by 2023, to reach 136,000 that year.
Police and firefighting agencies globally are deploying drones in public safety operations, wildfire management, crime scene investigation, and search and rescue operations. Gartner estimates that the number of drones used by police and firefighters will grow from one per 210,000 people to one per 47,000 people between 2018 and 2020.
Drone shipments will total 25,000 in 2020 and will rise to 122,000 units in 2023. Following this predicted trajectory, the biggest opportunity for retail will come after 2023. In addition, Gartner estimates that the number of employees per drone will decrease from 73,000 global retail employees per drone in 2018 to 18,000 global retail employees per drone in 2020.
