12 May 16. Airbus Seeks to Raise Its Profile in the Drone Industry. Airbus Group SE wants to become a major player in the fast-growing global drone industry, said its chief executive, Tom Enders, after years of missteps by the European plane maker that have left rivals with the upper hand. Airbus is no longer content to sit on the sidelines while rivals around the world capture burgeoning markets for military and commercial unmanned aircraft, Mr. Enders said Tuesday during an interview.
“It’s hard to imagine” Airbus eventually “not having a strong footing” in at least some of those businesses, he said, disclosing that a high-level management review is currently assessing various strategic options.
The issue is shaping up as an early test of efforts by Mr. Enders to make Europe’s largest aerospace company more entrepreneurial by better sharing expertise among company operations and reaching out to technology startups to foster creativity.
“We have produced some (drone) demonstrators over the years” and have experience operating them, Mr. Enders said, but Airbus has refrained from publicly emphasizing its ambitions partly because “we are not in a very strong position” yet when it comes to large-scale projects
A new strategy may come within months. Mr. Enders declined to elaborate on the specifics of the internal review, though he emphasized that at the top of Airbus, there already is a strong feeling “it’s a must to be in this area.” And he predicted a clearly-defined plan will emerge before the end of the year.
The annual market for drones, excluding the smallest systems used principally by hobbyists, should increase from roughly $4bn last year to $14bn by the middle of the next decade, with $93bn total spent over roughly the next 10 years, according to estimates by the Teal Group, a Fairfax, Va.-based aerospace consultant.
The military drone market is dominated by Northrop Grumman Corp., Israel Aerospace Industries and San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. The commercial drone market is more fragmented, with many small players jostling for share.
Airbus, the world’s second-largest commercial airplane builder after Boeing Co., is considering how much focus to put on commercial drones versus military models, Mr. Enders said.
In addition, Airbus officials are weighing how much they are willing to commit in direct investment to develop a suite of new drones for public and corporate uses, according to another industry official familiar with the process. Despite previous stumbles, the company also may try again to pursue the time-consuming process of building a consensus among various European states to share the costs of potential government models.
Germany, France, Italy and Spain last year agreed to study possible work on a joint military drone, though concrete plans to develop and buy such a system aren’t set, and national elections could upset even preliminary agreements.
To jump-start its efforts, Airbus also could choose to acquire or partner with an established drone maker, according to industry officials.
Airbus last year set up a venture-capital business and pledged an initial $150m investment in “disruptive and innovative business opportunities.” Local Motor Inc. a Phoenix-based company that uses digital manufacturing techniques to build appliances and vehicles from crowdsourced designs, became its first investment. The two since have launched a drone challenge to seek design ideas for drones to deliver medical supplies in emergencies. More than 200 entries already have been received.
Airbus has made attempts in the past to become a drone powerhouse and spent years and millions of dollars trying to catch up with U.S. and Israeli rivals with little success.
It sold a military drone to the French air force more than a decade ago, though that was based on an Israeli design. The French air force has since acquired Reaper drones from General Atomics and turned to French supplier Safran SA for s