Telecom Operators Eye 'Drone' as New Growth Engine... 5G Drones Take Off

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] "The drone era is coming soon." As domestic telecom companies in South Korea enter the second year of 5G commercialization, they are focusing on 'drones' to discover new business models. They are rapidly expanding cooperation with domestic and international companies targeting the 5G drone market, accelerating efforts to secure 'hyper-connectivity and hyper-convergence' revenue sources. It is expected that connecting drones, a promising future industry, with ultra-fast and low-latency communication networks such as 5G will provide innovative services across various industries that have never existed before.

According to industry sources on the 19th, among the three major domestic telecom companies, LG Uplus is the most active in the drone business. LG Uplus, which added unmanned aerial vehicle-related business to its articles of incorporation at the 2018 shareholders' meeting, showcased a smart drone using hydrogen fuel cells in collaboration with Doosan Mobility Innovation earlier this year. They plan to complete the integration of drone bodies and smart drone control and video services with the 5G network by the first half of this year.

This month, LG Uplus also signed business agreements with Japanese telecom company KDDI and Taiwanese drone manufacturer CIRC, further expanding cooperation across Asia. LG Uplus is currently working on linking a 'drone station'?which can automatically charge batteries at desired points using lightweight drones?with the smart drone platform. Starting next year, they plan to conduct demonstrations and explore various business opportunities. Once the platform is linked, control services for managing facilities such as large industrial complexes are expected to be widely adopted across industries.

SK Telecom has also begun actively promoting the domestic 5G drone industry this year. A representative example is last month's agreement with security company ADT Caps and intelligent video analysis platform company Innodep to develop and commercialize the '5GX drone solution.' An SK Telecom official explained, "Various 5G-based industrial drone services are expected, ranging from emergency dispatch in disaster situations such as fires to industrial complex monitoring, air quality measurement, and 3D surveying. Compared to existing services, this will reduce time and costs while improving accuracy and quality." To this end, they plan to first release drone solutions using existing networks such as LTE within this year.

KT, which developed the world's first 5G-based AI voice recognition drone, is also expanding its footprint, having signed a memorandum of understanding for business cooperation using hybrid drones with Korean Air last year. Previously, KT participated in the Giga Disaster Drone demonstration project with Gangwon Province.

The first reason the telecom industry is focusing on the drone business is the high market growth potential. The global drone market is growing at double-digit rates annually and is expected to surpass $20.2 billion (approximately 24.6 trillion KRW) by 2025. In particular, the industrial drone market is expected to grow rapidly from $400 million in 2016 to $5.9 billion in 2025. The industry views comprehensive solution businesses that provide all drone-related services to corporate customers as 'core.'

Another reason telecom companies are actively developing drones is the wide range of applications linked to communication networks such as 5G. Having succeeded in the world's first 5G commercialization in April last year and demonstrated '5G leadership,' domestic telecom companies are determined to lead the still nascent global 5G drone market.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.