Corporations in South Korea from a wide variety of industry sectors are turning their eyes toward drone technology, which is expected to create a great number of new business opportunities down the road.

South Korea’s 10th-largest conglomerate, Hanwha, is one of those firms aiming to make headway into the unmanned aircraft industry. The company recently acquired Samsung Techwin, the defense business arm of Samsung Group. The acquisition will especially help Hanwha pick up the pace in developing unmanned aerial vehicles for a variety of applications, including military, agriculture and leisure.

Some market officials anticipate that more conglomerates will soon try to commercialize their own drones as the market draws more attention from the public and becomes more profitable.

Even though Chinese drone-makers, DJI in particular, dominate the global market for consumer drones, Korean drone developers said it is only a matter of time before they catch up.

“Since the world’s drone market is still in its infancy, the technological gap between leaders and the rest is not great. So Korean firms can readily catch up with those Chinese companies when there is enough investment,” Jin Jung-hoi, chief executive of Xdrone, a Korean developer of drones said.

bbabo.Net