Qualcomm enters the drones industry in Sept, 2015 with the release of their Snapdragon Flight platform and their revolutionary 801 mobile chipset. Qualcomm announced at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas earlier this year that they intend to keep their focus on consumer and civilian drones. The civilian drones industry has an expected growth rate of 19% between 2015 and 2020, which outshines the military growth expectation of only 5%. Chinese companies like Tencent Holdings Limited and Yuneec have already announced plans to build drones based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Flight platform. The future looks promising for the company.

Qualcomm’s main competition is Ambarella which has a slight advantage in the mobile chipset market space due to being the first one in line. Ambarella is already working with drones powerhouse company DJI and the very popular GoPro cameras. However, there is speculation that GoPro intends to use Qualcomms chipset technology to develop and release their first camera drones. It’s truly a race to see who get’s there first. Qualcomm’s ability to outshine the rest might just lie on the ambitions of renown chip makers, Intel, however Intel did not announce any details thus far.

Long and short, consumer and civilian drones are on the rise despite facing federal regulations. It’s apparent that many companies see the opportunity with drones and are positioning to be the next big name in drone technology. Time will tell, but we are certain we haven’t even seen the half of it. Personally for us here at DS Drones, we are stoked and excited! We can’t wait to see what these companies bring to the table, and you better believe, we will be there, too! We are dedicated to stay on the cutting edge of drone tech so that we can bring our customers the very best!

Please let us know what you think about the advances in the drones industry. Would you like to see Qualcomm rise above, or are you an Ambarella fan? Should GoPro use the Qualcomm mobile chipset? Just let us hear from you, we really want to know what YOU, our community, would like to see this year, so leave us some comments below.

Happy flying!