Nicholas Horbaczewski, CEO and founder of DRL. [Photo provided to China Daily]
"We would love to collaborate with other Chinese brands, communicating their key messages through immersive content and activations around our visually spectacular races," he said. "We'd love to partner with other brands to not only promote the industry, but also inspire and develop a whole new generation of drone pilots and engineers for future careers in things like professional racing, aerial surveying and urban package delivery."
By 2020, China's civilian drone industry will continue to develop rapidly, with an annual output value of 60 billion yuan ($8.9 billion). The average annual growth rate will likely exceed 40 percent, according to the guidelines on promoting and regulating the development of the civil unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturing industry, issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in December 2017.
According to market consultancy TMR Research, the demand in the global market for racing drones has been rising on account of the growing popularity of luxury and tech-controlled sports. Drone racing has lately emerged as an important sport that is played by allied groups, sports enthusiasts, professionals and tech wizards.
Chinese e-commerce giant JD also held its first drone racing event last year, in cooperation with drone manufacturers such as DJI and Parrot, and the domestic professional drone racing league DroneGP, in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province.
Twelve pilots from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan flew racing quadcopters using real-time video goggles in the competition.
Industry insiders said the purpose of holding such drone racing events is not only to show JD's position in the drone category, but also to promote the further development of drone racing events in China.
"Such events have been well developed in Europe and the United States, but in China, they used to be mainly confined to some tests and performance activities by drone manufacturers. As the world's largest drone market, China should have its own racing drone competitions," said Wang Qing, founder and CEO of DGP, which holds DroneGP.
Wang is bullish on the prospects for the events. "It is just the beginning. Like e-sports, drones have entered people's daily lives. Now e-sports are attracting a large amount of money, we can imagine the huge growth space of drone racing," Wang said.
"There are hundreds of pilots in China, which seems to be a small number, but the number of domestic drone enthusiasts who watch such events through media platforms has exceeded 20 million," he said.
However, Wang admitted that there is still a long way to go for drone racing. "In countries like the US and South Korea, there are more than one thousand pilots. We want to popularize and promote such events," he said.
"In order to meet the requirements of shooting and broadcasting, the drone model used in the competition is larger. We record the events and distribute these videos to iQiyi, one of China's largest online streaming websites," Wang said.
