DRONES 2030
Drones become a $150 billion sky. Military 50%, work 20%, delivery 10%.
Key figures
Drone market 2025: $84 billion a year worldwide.
My call for 2030: $150 billion a year.
The analysts sit between $54 billion and $146 billion, middle $107 billion.
DJI builds 70% of the world's civilian drones.
The US banned all new DJI models in December 2025.
China's "low-altitude economy": 1.5 trillion yuan in 2025, 3.5 trillion yuan by 2035.
Registered drones 3.29 million, up from 1.27 million in 2 years.
Drone exports 2025: China and Hong Kong $4.6 billion, more than the next 18 countries combined.
Poland number 3, the Netherlands number 5.
Drones are the cheapest aircraft ever built. By 2030 they are a $150 billion a year industry, up from $84 billion today.
I told Max Verstappen on stage in 2017 that drones would leave the racetrack and the film set and go to work. Here is the work, and who pays for it in 2030:
Military and defense, 50%, $75 billion. Ukraine turned the $500 drone into the weapon of the decade. My Military Tech 2040 card covers the rest.
Working drones, 20%, $30 billion. Inspecting power lines, pipelines, wind turbines, building sites. Mapping, surveying, filming.
Delivery, 10%, $15 billion. Amazon promises 500 million packages a year by 2030 and flies thousands a day today. Wing and Zipline are ahead of it.
Consumer and entertainment, 10%, $15 billion. Camera drones, drone racing, drone shows replacing fireworks. In 2024 the world's fastest F1 camera drone, Dutch-built, chased Max Verstappen round Silverstone at 350 km/h, 0 to 300 in 4 seconds, twice the acceleration of his Formula 1 car.
Agriculture, 8%, $12 billion. Spraying, seeding, crop scanning. DJI alone has 300,000 farm drones over 500 million hectares.
Firefighters, police, rescue, 2%, $3 billion. A drone reaches the scene in 90 seconds. A patrol car in 7 minutes.
The real story: China builds the civilian drones, the US bans them. Beijing calls it the low-altitude economy and wants 3.5 trillion yuan of it by 2035. Washington blacklisted DJI in December 2025.
My warning: this is about people, not toys. Drones save the farmer, the firefighter and the nurse in a village with no road. Keep the sky ours.
