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Demand for drones in a wide range of commercial niches is booming.  While virtually all drone sectors are experiencing record growth rates,  law enforcement, farm management, construction and real estate are among the top performers.  Most drone suppliers still focus on a single niche but those companies that can demonstrate their versatility by building partnerships and expanding into multiple niches are poised to grow most rapidly.

A good example is Canada-based Draganfly.  Canada’s drone market is still relatively small on a global scale, and until recently, the Saskatoon-based company – though operational for more than two decades – wasn’t even ranked in Canada’s top 10.  But 2022 proved to be a banner year for Draganfly.  In the space of 12 months, the company expanded its production facilities in Burnaby and unveiled three different classes of drones, with diverse applications:  the Heavy Lift Drone (for cargo delivery), the Long Range LiDAR Drone (for aerial surveillance and situational awareness, primarily for first-responders), and Draganfly’s award-winning Commander 3 XL Drone (with numerous cross-cutting applications).   As a result, the company’s sales have skyrocketed and  Draganfly’s reputation – not just nationally, but worldwide – has soared.

Draganfly’s willingness to expand into overseas markets and seize upon new opportunities has been a key ingredient of its success.  Last November, it forged a partnership Agtegrity, an agronomy consulting firm that works with California farmers on soil fertility and pest management issues.  The company was dazzled by Draganfly’s weather-resistant Commander 3 XL drone platform, which is highly adaptable to the complex applications required in precision agriculture, from aerial surveying and 3D mapping to soil testing and fertilizer and pesticide spraying.

Draganfly’s also poised to make major inroads into India’s burgeoning and highly lucrative – but also highly protected —drone market, which other foreign drone companies have avoided due to Delhi’s increasingly strict “Made-in-India” policies.  Draganfly has forged a partnership with Remote Sensing International (RSI), an Indian-owned geospatial services firm with years of experience operating in India and throughout South Asia.  RSI will front for Draganfly, clearing away the numerous bottlenecks and roadblocks that have discouraged other external suppliers.

“It is significant for Draganfly to have been pulled into one of the largest, if not the largest, drone markets in the world,” said Draganfly CEO Cameron Chell, after inking the deal with RSI. “The opportunity to be manufacturing and distributing in the Indian market provides a potential scale for us that is years ahead of schedule from what was initially thought possible.”

Another source of Draganfly’s expanding sales and brand recognition is the company’s highly visible humanitarian operations in the Ukraine.   While other Canadian companies have avoided this war-torn land out of security concerns, Draganfly has jumped right in. One area of support has been training Ukraine’s medical and public safety teams to use the company’s LiDAR reconnaissance drone to find and care for people injured or trapped by Russian strikes.  Draganfly training teams are also assisting Ukrainian forces to locate and neutralize the thousands of  mines and unexploded missiles that Russian troops have left behind during their invasion and occupation.  Both operations have brought Draganfly praise from all quarters, leading to expanding requests for its services in other global disaster settings.

Chell says the company is growing so fast, it can hardly produce its drones fast enough to meet requests for their varied service.  The company’s already planning a second manufacturing expansion at Burnaby and the likely building of a second plant elsewhere.  Its new plant will rely on automated machinery to support smart manufacturing, including multiple in-line working stations to facilitate the continuous  expansion of assembly, integration, and quality control posts.  The plant will also feature a state-of-the-art inventory management system, which allows for faster turnaround time on new orders, essential for meeting the ever surging demand for Draganfly drones.

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