World Tribune.com

Demand for aerial drones seen tripling worldwide

Special to World Tribune.com
GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT.COM
Monday, September 18, 2006

WASHINGTON — The unmanned aerial vehicle market, regarded as the most dynamic sector in the aerospace industry, is expected to triple over the next decade.

The Teal Group said UAV spending, fueled by U.S. programs, would increase by more than 200 percent until 2015. In a report, the U.S. consultancy said annual UAV spending would increase from $2.7 billion to $8.3 billion within a decade. In all, the UAV market would reach $55 billion over the next 10 years.

"The most significant catalyst to this market has been the enormous growth of interest in UAVs by the U.S. military, tied to the general trend toward information warfare and net-centric systems," Teal senior analyst Steve Zaloga said.

The study, authored by Zaloga, said the United States would account for 77 percent of global research, development, testing and engineering of UAV technology over the next decade. Teal said the United States would account for 64 percent of worldwide UAV procurement. The expected U.S. share of the UAV market was far higher than for overall defense procurement spending.

"These discrepancies are due to the heavier U.S. investment in cutting-edge technologies and the marked lag time in such research and procurement elsewhere, especially major aerospace centers such as Europe," Zaloga said.

The report said Europe, with a 20 percent R&D share, would represent the second largest UAV market. This would be followed by the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.

"UAVs are a key element in the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance [ISR] portion of this revolution, and they are expanding into other missions as well with the advent of hunter-killer UAVs," Zaloga said.


Copyright © 2006 East West Services, Inc.

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