DJI Domination of Public Safety Drone Sector Continues as Autel Robotics Surges to Second Position

MIAMI – August 9, 2021 – The world’s leading drone manufacturer, Da-Jiang Innovations – a company headquartered in Shenzhen, China and known by its popular trade name DJI – continues to dominate the public safety unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) category according to new research from the Airborne International Response Team (AIRT), the leading 501(c)3 non-profit organization supporting the use of unmanned systems for public safety and disaster response – and official home of DRONERESPONDERS.

Data collected via the AIRT + DRONERESPONDERS 2021 Public Safety UAS Survey conducted from July 15-31 shows that when asked “which of the following brand(s) of UAS does your public safety agency or organization currently operate (check all the apply),” 90.36% (422 of the 467 respondents to the question) claimed to be operating DJI drones as part of their fleet.

When looking at additional segments within the data set, the numbers increase to 92.06% of law enforcement UAS programs and 92.47% of major city public safety UAS programs (representing a jurisdiction with a population of 500K people or greater) saying they operate DJI.

Meanwhile Autel Robotics, an American company headquartered in Bothell, Washington that is owned by Autel Intelligent Technology – also based in Shenzhen, China – has captured the number two position according to AIRT + DRONERESPONDERS research.  Of the public safety UAS programs, 18.84% claim to be operating Autel drones within their fleet.  Additionally, 21.16% of law enforcement drone programs and 21.51% of major cities drone programs say they are flying Autel.

Rounding out the top five drone manufacturer brands that public safety UAS programs claim to be operating are Skydio, 11.35%, Parrot, 9.85%, and FLIR, 9.21%.

When analyzing the law enforcement segment, the number for Skydio drops to 10.05%, while Parrot’s percentage climbs slightly to match Skydio at 10.05%.  FLIR edges up a bit to 9.52%.

The major cities data segment shows both Skydio and Parrot increasing to 16.13% and 11.83% respectively, while FLIR plummets to 6.45%.

The AIRT + DRONERESPONDERS 2021 Public Safety UAS Survey was conducted as a self-selecting survey tool targeting public safety UAS program across the U.S. and internationally.  Approximately 600 public safety organizations responded to the survey during the two-week period it was open.  Additional data and findings from the survey will be released in the coming weeks.