The picture is from canva, which can be drawn

At present, both UAV companies and UAV service companies have more or less limited their ideas to the framework of “UAV”. However, Dajiang’s dominance in the consumer UAV market forces other UAV enterprises to find a way to avoid Dajiang. Industry class UAV is undoubtedly one of the breakthrough points, and plant protection UAV is the most promising direction in the application of industry-class UAV, accounting for 42% of all industry-class UAV markets.

However, the complex environmental conditions and policy endogeneity of China’s agriculture determine the complex market characteristics of plant protection UAVs. In this context, after more than ten years of development, the plant protection UAV market has formed a market pattern of Dajiang hejifei leading the flight and other enterprises accompanying the flight.

Now, the development of domestic plant protection UAVs has reached a fork in the road: the UAV hardware as the carrier platform has been relatively mature, and the ceiling has been visible to the naked eye. The agricultural data derived from the hardware has become the foothold for the further growth of UAV manufacturers. How to treat and apply these data determines the behavioral logic and business strategy of the subsequent development of enterprises, In this regard, the practices of Dajiang and Jifei are obviously different.

Why does plant protection UAV exist

China’s plant protection UAV market is based on a certain material basis. From a macro perspective, this material basis is first of all the combined scale of China’s 1.8 billion mu cultivated land red line and some other crops under certain historical and geographical conditions, which determines the overall scale of the plant protection market. At the same time, the mechanization, digitization and intellectualization of China’s agriculture, as well as the two parallel trends of agricultural population reduction and aging, jointly determine the application prospect of plant protection UAV.

From a micro perspective, China’s land system and the complex agricultural production formed by different agricultural environments also determine the complexity of the plant protection UAV market. It not only needs to face the traditional agricultural machinery, but also needs to revolutionize its own production efficiency. On the one hand, it improves the operation and expansion difficulty of plant protection UAV practitioners, but on the other hand, it provides strategic depth for the survival and growth of underachievers.

In this context, plant protection UAV enterprises work in this industrial chain (part) of “UAV manufacturers → dealers → flying defense teams → farmland and its beneficiaries”. However, for today’s manufacturing manufacturers whose Internet thinking permeates them, it is extremely disadvantageous and impossible to limit their enterprise strategy to agriculture. In fact, different enterprises’ different positioning and different views on this industrial chain determine their different business strategies.

Although Dajiang and Jifei are both UAV manufacturers, their business fields and enterprise strategies are quite different. After the consumer UAV market hit hard and failed, Jifei turned to the field of plant protection UAVs in an all-round way. Dajiang took technology as the key link and products as the discipline and blossomed in different fields. In this way, different business ideas of the two enterprises were formed. Therefore, there is no small difference between the two in the face of the data generated in the process of agricultural operation.

Dajiang: from UAV to agriculture

Dajiang’s participation in all walks of life is realized through UAVs, and plant protection UAVs are only one part of the whole business of Dajiang, the leader of the UAV industry. Moreover, for Dajiang, in the face of strange competition in different fields and industries, it does not and cannot devote too much energy to each subdivided field. Therefore, for Dajiang, UAV hardware is the foundation of its existence. Only by doing a good job in hardware can it sit on the Diaoyutai and radiate its sphere of influence to other industry-level businesses.

Dajiang’s competition mode is extremely lethal, which is no different from “catfish” or even “shark” into the barrel. In the price war initiated by itself, Dajiang has almost changed the market form by its own strength. In the four years from 2015 to 2018, the price of Mg series plant protection UAVs released by Dajiang has been reduced from 52999 yuan to 31888 yuan. There are even contract machines with a price of 17188 yuan such as mg-1p, which can be stopped as long as they continue to purchase services of 10000 yuan in the future.

Under such circumstances, on the one hand, the profit of flight defense services has increased, benefiting the first entrants; On the other hand, the threshold of flight defense service is very low, and the interests of market participants are diluted under full competition. Moreover, with the rapid growth of the number of flying defense teams, the quality of flying defense services has not developed synchronously, which also caused the market chaos of flying defense teams to farmland. In this regard, relying only on UAVs, Dajiang has no way to “correct” the market with the nature of social responsibility of large factories.

In fact, Dajiang’s UAV products are essentially to provide services for “flying hands”. As mentioned above, in the industrial chain of “UAV manufacturer → dealer → flying defense team → farmland and its beneficiaries”, Dajiang believes that it has no energy and no need to provide direct services to farmland and its beneficiaries. Therefore, it has become the only choice to provide equipment to highly mobile flying defense teams on the basis of dealers, and Dajiang’s plant protection UAVs are almost born for this.

Dajiang UAV is large, cost-effective, iterative and intelligent. Unlike Jifei UAV, Dajiang plant protection UAV needs a lot of preparation before flying, and still needs human monitoring and operation - this product form is just in line with the current market situation dominated by flight defense team service. Indeed, Dajiang is the enterprise with the highest market share of plant protection UAVs in China.

In addition to making efforts in the air defense team and air defense services, the application of data generated in the process of serving farmland by the air defense team seems to be limited by the limitations of its own enterprise strategy and stop at the plant protection UAV product itself. In other words, for Dajiang, the value and application scope of agricultural data are limited. Xie Tian, the public relations director of Dajiang, once said that Dajiang was responsible for “providing equipment and infrastructure”, and said that “it will not compete with ecology”.

Jifei: from agriculture to UAV

According to the China Digital Village Development Report (2019), the potential market scale of China’s smart agriculture is expected to increase to 200 billion yuan in 2020. By 2020, there are 19.48 agricultural machinery operation service organizations in China

The picture is from canva, which can be drawn

At present, both UAV companies and UAV service companies have more or less limited their ideas to the framework of “UAV”. However, Dajiang’s dominance in the consumer UAV market forces other UAV enterprises to find a way to avoid Dajiang. Industry class UAV is undoubtedly one of the breakthrough points, and plant protection UAV is the most promising direction in the application of industry-class UAV, accounting for 42% of all industry-class UAV markets.

However, the complex environmental conditions and policy endogeneity of China’s agriculture determine the complex market characteristics of plant protection UAVs. In this context, after more than ten years of development, the plant protection UAV market has formed a market pattern of Dajiang hejifei leading the flight and other enterprises accompanying the flight.

Now, the development of domestic plant protection UAVs has reached a fork in the road: the UAV hardware as the carrier platform has been relatively mature, and the ceiling has been visible to the naked eye. The agricultural data derived from the hardware has become the foothold for the further growth of UAV manufacturers. How to treat and apply these data determines the behavioral logic and business strategy of the subsequent development of enterprises, In this regard, the practices of Dajiang and Jifei are obviously different.

Why does plant protection UAV exist

China’s plant protection UAV market is based on a certain material basis. From a macro perspective, this material basis is first of all the combined scale of China’s 1.8 billion mu cultivated land red line and some other crops under certain historical and geographical conditions, which determines the overall scale of the plant protection market. At the same time, the mechanization, digitization and intellectualization of China’s agriculture, as well as the two parallel trends of agricultural population reduction and aging, jointly determine the application prospect of plant protection UAV.

From a micro perspective, China’s land system and the complex agricultural production formed by different agricultural environments also determine the complexity of the plant protection UAV market. It not only needs to face the traditional agricultural machinery, but also needs to revolutionize its own production efficiency. On the one hand, it improves the operation and expansion difficulty of plant protection UAV practitioners, but on the other hand, it provides strategic depth for the survival and growth of underachievers.

In this context, plant protection UAV enterprises work in this industrial chain (part) of “UAV manufacturers → dealers → flying defense teams → farmland and its beneficiaries”. However, for today’s manufacturing manufacturers whose Internet thinking permeates them, it is extremely disadvantageous and impossible to limit their enterprise strategy to agriculture. In fact, different enterprises’ different positioning and different views on this industrial chain determine their different business strategies.

Although Dajiang and Jifei are both UAV manufacturers, their business fields and enterprise strategies are quite different. After the consumer UAV market hit hard and failed, Jifei turned to the field of plant protection UAVs in an all-round way. Dajiang took technology as the key link and products as the discipline and blossomed in different fields. In this way, different business ideas of the two enterprises were formed. Therefore, there is no small difference between the two in the face of the data generated in the process of agricultural operation.

Dajiang: from UAV to agriculture

Dajiang’s participation in all walks of life is realized through UAVs, and plant protection UAVs are only one part of the whole business of Dajiang, the leader of the UAV industry. Moreover, for Dajiang, in the face of strange competition in different fields and industries, it does not and cannot devote too much energy to each subdivided field. Therefore, for Dajiang, UAV hardware is the foundation of its existence. Only by doing a good job in hardware can it sit on the Diaoyutai and radiate its sphere of influence to other industry-level businesses.

Dajiang’s competition mode is extremely lethal, which is no different from “catfish” or even “shark” into the barrel. In the price war initiated by itself, Dajiang has almost changed the market form by its own strength. In the four years from 2015 to 2018, the price of Mg series plant protection UAVs released by Dajiang has been reduced from 52999 yuan to 31888 yuan. There are even contract machines with a price of 17188 yuan such as mg-1p, which can be stopped as long as they continue to purchase services of 10000 yuan in the future.

Under such circumstances, on the one hand, the profit of flight defense services has increased, benefiting the first entrants; On the other hand, the threshold of flight defense service is very low, and the interests of market participants are diluted under full competition. Moreover, with the rapid growth of the number of flying defense teams, the quality of flying defense services has not developed synchronously, which also caused the market chaos of flying defense teams to farmland. In this regard, relying only on UAVs, Dajiang has no way to “correct” the market with the nature of social responsibility of large factories.

In fact, Dajiang’s UAV products are essentially to provide services for “flying hands”. As mentioned above, in the industrial chain of “UAV manufacturer → dealer → flying defense team → farmland and its beneficiaries”, Dajiang believes that it has no energy and no need to provide direct services to farmland and its beneficiaries. Therefore, it has become the only choice to provide equipment to highly mobile flying defense teams on the basis of dealers, and Dajiang’s plant protection UAVs are almost born for this.

Dajiang UAV is large, cost-effective, iterative and intelligent. Unlike Jifei UAV, Dajiang plant protection UAV needs a lot of preparation before flying, and still needs human monitoring and operation - this product form is just in line with the current market situation dominated by flight defense team service. Indeed, Dajiang is the enterprise with the highest market share of plant protection UAVs in China.

In addition to making efforts in the air defense team and air defense services, the application of data generated in the process of serving farmland by the air defense team seems to be limited by the limitations of its own enterprise strategy and stop at the plant protection UAV product itself. In other words, for Dajiang, the value and application scope of agricultural data are limited. Xie Tian, the public relations director of Dajiang, once said that Dajiang was responsible for “providing equipment and infrastructure”, and said that “it will not compete with ecology”.

Jifei: from agriculture to UAV

According to the China Digital Village Development Report (2019), the potential market scale of China’s smart agriculture is expected to increase to 200 billion yuan in 2020. By 2020, there are 19.48 agricultural machinery operation service organizations in China