What will the 2025 drone industry look? Report indicates challenges ahead

What will the 2025 drone industry look like? What challenges lie ahead? What opportunities will drone companies prioritize in the next year?

While a lot of things change, one thing in particular remains steadfast in the drone industry. Regulatory obstacles remain the top challenge for the drone industry right now, as has been the case for years now.

That’s according to the Global State of Drones 2024 report, which was based on 964 survey responses from drone users across a record 94 countries, collected between May and July 2024. The survey, conducted by German-based analytics group Drone Industry Insight, polled industry representatives who span everything from small business owners to leaders at massive companies with more than 500 people. They considered the hardware, software and service provider sector.

So with that, here are some of the most encouraging things about drones to come in 2025. And of course, here’s also a look at the biggest challenges for drones in 2025:

Where do drone businesses anticipate prioritizing resources in 2025?

As is the case in most years, marketing and sales is a top priority for drone businesses in 2025. After all, work (for most people, at least) is about making money. 31% of respondents in DII’s survey said that marketing and sales is their top priority in 2025.

Here’s a breakdown of how drone businesses are prioritizing resources in 2025 ranked from most to least percent of businesses that said it was a priority:

1. Marketing and sales (31%)
2. Software development (17%)
3. Finances and funding (16%)
4. Staff development (16%)
5. Hardware development (15%)
6. Other (6%)

Marketing and sales is far and away the standout priority for the 2025 drone industry, but it’s also interesting to look at historical data. For the past couple years, marketing and sales has been a top priority for about 31-33% of drone companies. But that figure has increased from the high 20 percents up until 2022, when it skyrocketed to 33%.

While marketing and sales has long been a priority, finances and funding is at least a growing priority. That interest has grown from 12% in 2019 to 16% in 2024, only seeing a slight dip in 2021. Hardware development has also seen a slight uptick in prioritization.

And what sorts of things are businesses prioritizing less? The biggest factor is staff development. Though that begs some interesting questions.

“Is it becoming less important to develop staff because new staff are already prepared?” DII asked in an analysis of the data. “Or are companies simply investing less in their people and more in their products?”

Top concerns among drone companies in 2025

According to DII’s Global State of Drones 2024 report, client acquisition has become a relatively new concern. Other growing concerns for the 2025 drone industry include fears about acquiring funding for scaling up. There’s also that growing focus on domestic politics over geopolitical issues.

So with that, here are the top concerns among drone companies for the year ahead, ranked from biggest to smallest concern:

1. Regulatory obstacles
2. Client acquisition
3. Domestic politics
4. Acquiring additional funding to scale up
5. Public awareness or acceptance
6. Finding and acquiring qualified personnel
7. Competition within the industry
8. Inflation and economic cycles
9. Logistics
10. Geopolitics

As was the case last year, regulatory obstacles reign supreme as top obstacle for drone companies worldwide.

It’s particularly pronounced in the U.S. where regulation around Remote ID proved challenging and confusing. Final rule for Remote ID deadlines were continuously extended, and even uptick in adoption of Remote ID modules has been low (despite the rule officially in effect now).

Now the FAA has certainly made some major drone approvals, speeding up or processes or removing barriers in the U.S. For example, the FAA has begun issuing approvals to launch fireworks from drones. The NYPD just earned a historic FAA approval to fly drones beyond-line-of-sight (BVLOS) across much of NYC without needing either a visual observer or even other type of specialized equipment to detect other aircraft. But that might all mean nothing if politicians crack down on drones. A largely Republican-driven effort has sought to ban Chinese-made drones in the U.S. That’s left many drone businesses wondering if they should even buy DJI drones amidst a Chinese drone ban.

But optimists might not look at regulation as so much of a challenge as more of a market driver.

“The share of participants who considered rulemaking authorities as the top market drivers increased from 52% last year to 57% this year,” according to DII. “In other words, regulation remained the top challenge. But with more regulations being implemented and taking effect around the
world, regulation is perhaps starting to be seen as less of a [negative] “challenge” and more of a [positive] “market driver.”

Past problems that are concerns no more (or at least of less concern)

Then again, previous concerns — notably inflation and public acceptance — have decreased in importance for drone companies. Inflation truly has been less stark now than it was in past years, so that one isn’t all that surprising. In fact, inflation was the third-biggest concern in last year’s version of the same report. Yet this year, it fell in concern to 8th place.

Meanwhile, as drones become more widely used, perhaps it’s also unsurprisingly that public acceptance is less of an issue than it once was. Perhaps anecdotes like Sky Elements making the America’s Got Talent Season 19 winning podium and the increasingly affordability of camera drones (hello $200 DJI Neo) has something to do with it.

Learn more about the challenges and opportunities for the 2025 drone industry in the Global State of Drones 2024 report from DII.

What do you anticipate the 2025 drone industry looking like? What challenges and opportunities lie ahead? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!