Commercial drones have leapt far ahead of regulators and are already entrenched in a handful of massive industries

The fast-growing global drone industry has not sat back waiting for government policy to be hammered out before pouring investment and effort into opening up this all-new hardware and computing market.

A growing ecosystem of drone software and hardware vendors is already catering to a long list of clients in agriculture, land management, energy, and construction. Many of the vendors are smallish private companies and startups - although large defense-focused companies and industrial conglomerates are beginning to invest in drone technology, too.

In the most recent report from BI Intelligence, we take a deep dive into the various levels of the growing global industry for commercial drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This 32-page report provides forecasts for the business opportunity in commercial drone technology, looks at advances and persistent barriers, highlights the top business-to-business markets in terms of applications and end users, and provides an exclusive list of dozens of notable companies already active in the space. Finally, it digs into the current state of US regulation of commercial drones, recently upended by the issuing of the Federal Aviation Administration's draft rules for commercial drone flights. Few people know that many companies are already authorized to fly small drones commercially under a US government "exemption" program.

Here are some of the main takeaways from the report:

• The global commercial drone market will take shape around applications in a handful of industries: agriculture, energy, utilities, mining, construction, real estate, news media, and film production.
• Most growth in the drone industry is on the commercial/civilian side, as the shift away from the military market gains momentum. The market for commercial/civilian drones will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% between 2015 and 2020, compared with 5% growth on the military side.
• E-commerce and package delivery will not be an early focus of the drone industry.
• Legacy drone manufacturers focused mostly on military clients do not have a natural advantage in the fast-evolving civilian drone market.
• Proposed US regulation would effectively end the ban on commercial drone flights and would allow low-altitude flights of small drones within view of a ground-based pilot. The rules are unlikely to be finalized before early 2017. Some believe it will happen earlier. But we believe it most likely that widespread though heavily restricted commercial UAV flights will become routine sometime that year.
• Technology barriers are at once a roadblock and a huge business opportunity.
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  DJI

  A drone manufactured by Shenzhen-based DJI

  Many of the notable early commercial UAV manufacturers are emerging outside of the US market: These include Switzerland-based senseFly (owned by France-based Parrot), Canadian firm Aeryon, publicly traded Swedish firm CybAero, Shenzhen, China-based DJI, and Korea-based Gryphon.
• The commercial-drone industry is still young but has begun to see some consolidation and major investments from large industrial conglomerates, chip companies, and defense contractors.

In full, the report:

• Contains two detailed tables listing all the US companies already authorized to fly drones commercially, the brand/model of UAVs they'll use, and the applications they're supporting
• Details the implications of the FAA's new proposed rules for commercial drones
• Explores the top applications for commercial drones and why they have emerged as niches friendly to UAV technology
• Lists the high-level attributes of UAV systems and hardware, and why there are certain obstacles that remain difficult
• Contains charts on commercial-drone market size, FAA exemptions, and direct economic impact