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Drones

Drone Adoption in the United States

Drones have remained a steady topic of interest across the U.S. Their potential use cases have been covered in American media across a wide range of topics--from Amazon’s plans to use drones for product deliveries, to adoption by the American press for news reporting, and most recently, for Apple’s crackdown on drone use near its offices out of concern for preserving business secrets.

Following the FAA’s easing of restrictions on drone usage (which may open up the market in commercial settings), as well as with the increased offering of more affordable drone options for the general public, we took a look at the geographic distribution of drone buyers to see where drones are most prevalent.

Alaska is a Hot Spot for Drones

We found that Alaska leads the nation in unique drone buyers per capita. Alaskans are about 4-5 times as likely to purchase a drone compared to the national average, as an analysis of recent purchases within our research shows. Second is North Dakota.

The below map of drone adoption is at state level, in which the value of ‘1.0’ corresponds to the national average.

Drone purchases between January 1, 2017 - June 30, 2017, at values between $50 to $5,000.

In broader terms, we see that an approximate pattern emerges: adoption in the coastal areas and the north of the country tends to be relatively high compared to many central and mid-western states.

Lastly, with 2017 FAA estimates of about 1 million new hobbiest drones alone constituting almost 100% growth compared to the drone fleet in 2016, it is also interesting to look at how the marketplace is split. We can confirm DJI’s lead in the space, with about 60% of the market by sales revenue. Overall, it will be very interesting to see how the drone market develops, and whether the lofty adoption numbers and market share projections will materialize.

As the market evolves, we will continue to stay on top of the latest trends. To learn more about how Edison Trends can help your business, contact us at bizdev@edison.tech. For more up-to-date insights in the e-commerce space, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on Twitter at @EdisonTrends.

*The data shown is based on a sample of anonymized and aggregated e-receipts from millions of consumers in the United States.

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