(AOF) – Aircraft manufacturer specializing in professional civilian drones and artificial intelligence, Drone Volt announces that its 2022 annual revenue reached a record level of 13.4 million euros, up 53% over 1 year. This volume of business is significantly higher than the two-digit growth target set during the year, and the threshold of 10 million euros, targeted from last November. This performance is due to a very good end to the year, illustrated by a fourth quarter up 126%, to 5.4 million euros.
Drone Volt thus demonstrates its ability to expand its customer base in Europe, in particular thanks to the successful integration of the Dutch company Skytools, which contributed 1,084,000 euros in 2022.
This success boosted the performance of the Third-Party Brands division, which saw its billings multiply by 2.3, to reach 11.7 million euros. This commercial conquest makes it possible to address new customers who, tomorrow, will be natural candidates for the Group’s value-added product and service offerings.
The group’s consolidated gross margin is stable overall, at 2.8 million euros, but reveals a degraded margin rate of 14 points, at 21% of turnover.
Beyond that, 2023 will be a special year for Drone Volt, which will commercially launch two new breakthrough offers on the professional civilian drone market. The first offer concerns the Linedrone INEDRONE, developed in collaboration with HYDRO-QUEBEC and intended for the complex inspection of high voltage electricity transmission lines
The second is the “Drone as a Service” pay-as-you-go offer based on billing for use and not for the ownership of its unparalleled products. This strategy will facilitate commercial deployment, by replacing the significant investment for the customer by a cost largely covered by the resulting profits.
AOF – LEARN MORE
Growth of the French market in value
According to the Gfk institute, the sector generated sales of 4.8 billion euros in 2021, up 2% compared to 2020. The product families that benefited from the best performance are in particular helmets and accessories as well as televisions. However, while the French consumer electronics market grew in value last year, it fell in terms of volumes (-2% with 51 million units sold). This trend can be explained by a move upmarket in products: Bluetooth speakers are more powerful or even television sets use more innovative technologies. Thus the development of technologies that improve image resolution (Oled, Qled, miniled) and the size of screens have caused an increase of more than 20% in the average price. Consumers are also looking for more sustainable products.