European Remote Sensing Markets set to grow

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Oct 23, 2001

Commercial remote sensing markets are set to grow as increased supply and lower costs combine with market structure reform to open up new markets, according to a report

Commercial remote sensing markets are set to grow as increased supply and lower costs combine with market structure reform to open up new markets for the traditionally government dominated market for remotely sensed data.

New analysis by Frost and Sullivan - European Remote Sensing Vertical Markets - reveals this industry generated revenues of $1.1 billion in 2000 and is projected to increase to $1.7 billion in 2006 with nearly all the growth coming from new vertical markets.

"Much of this growth will be realised in areas such as agriculture and environmental applications as the cost effectiveness of utilising remote sensing becomes apparent with greater availability of high resolution data and lower costs," says European Defence and Aerospace Analyst Ben Moores.

"Whilst traditional government markets will continue to dominate the market, new commercial applications will experience very rapid growth in the post 2003 timeframe." The remote sensing industry in Europe has distinct, yet subtle, differences from the North American and other regional markets and we expect there to be a dynamic shift when the supply side of the market restructures over the next 5 years.

"By 2006 we expect that many of the names that are well known in the market today will have changed or disappeared as companies re-organise themselves to take advantage of the opportunities that are on the horizon," says Mr Moores.

Traditionally a military led market, remote sensing is finally seeing the drivers in place that will allow it to expand into the 'long promised land'.

The study concludes that the first wave of commercial applications such as telecommunications and mining and petroleum are not seeing the large growth that was hoped for from within the industry a couple of years ago.

However, Frost and Sullivan has identified a number of vertical markets that will benefit from the large scale changes that the market is undergoing.

Whilst restraints remain that will hold back certain applications and sensor types it is expected that over time these will factors will hold less weight as the market.

Whilst Frost and Sullivan does not anticipate that the holy grail of mass consumer markets is quite upon the industry, it expects that certain companies will make considerable headway into these markets as advances in telecommunication technology continue.

"We forecast that demand for certain sorts of data will ramp up very rapidly as potential users begin to see new, powerful, application software and the cost effectiveness of utilising remote sensing data to carry out traditional tasks," Mr Moores continues.

"2003 is expected to be a key year for the industry and it will be crucial for the major players to prepare themselves now.

We predict that those that don't will lose a critical opportunity to restructure that is required to take advantage of this market shift.".