Ranked: Top 5 drone manufacturers of 2023

German research firm Drone Industry Insights (Droneii) has released its annual flagship report, ranking the companies that manufacture drones. The research team says it assessed more than 500 civil- and government-use drone makers around the world to build the report.

Top drone manufacturers of 2023

Here are the key highlights from the report:

• DJI (China) continues to dominate civil drones, followed by Skydio (USA), XAG (China), Parrot (France), and JOUAV (China).
• Insitu (USA) takes the top spot for dual-use (civil and government) drones, followed by Schiebel (Austria), Edge Autonomy (USA), Quantum Systems (Germany), and ideaForge (India).

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For this report, Droneii considered civil drone makers as those who produce drones for two types of customers: individual content creators who fly for hobby or commercial purposes, and professional users who leverage drones in industries such as energy, construction, agriculture, and transport.

Much like in previous years, the first place in this segment goes to DJI by a substantial margin (79%). The company continues to be celebrated globally by both drone experts and the general public, despite numerous blacklists and political controversies brought against it. And at the end of the day, it remains the number-one brand for drone technology in the world.

It’s worth mentioning that second-place Skydio has anyway ended recreational manufacturing to focus more on commercial drones. The US drone maker also raised $230 million in Series E funding this year after expanding its enterprise customer base to over 1,200 organizations.

Rounding out the top 3 comes XAG, which has experienced significant growth in overseas markets, especially in Latin America and Southeast Asia​. Similar to Skydio, fourth-place Parrot has also discontinued its consumer drones program, while fifth-place JOUAV has opened a new $50 million drone factory in China.

Read more: Stop exporting critical US tech to drone maker DJI, lawmakers urge Biden