Sony Corp. plans to offer commercial drone services targeting the construction, logistics and agriculture industries from the first half of next year.
The company is making drones that can fly over a predetermined geographical area and take high definition footage that will be uploaded into the cloud for analysis, Sony told reporters Monday in Tokyo.
Sony, whose Xperia smartphones have struggled to gain market share, is looking to find another use for its mobile phone and digital camera technologies in the nascent drone market.
The unmanned aircraft industry may be worth $82 billion by 2025 in the U.S. alone, and has already attracted investments from Google Inc., General Electric Co. and Qualcomm Inc. despite privacy and safety concerns.
“It’s difficult to expect growth in the smartphone business with smartphones alone, which is why we are looking at new opportunities such as this,” said Hiroki Totoki, head of Sony’s mobile business.
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