Industry丨The low-altitude economy has reached a scale of trillions, who is carving it up and who is laying it out?

In October last year, four departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Green Aviation Manufacturing Development Outline (2023-2035)", which clearly stated that by 2025, electric general aviation aircraft will be put into commercial application, and electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) will Goal to start pilot run.

In December last year, the Central Economic Work Conference established guidelines for creating several strategic emerging industries such as biomanufacturing, commercial aerospace, and low-altitude economy.

In February this year, the fourth meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Commission emphasized that the development of new logistics models that combine platform economy, low-altitude economy, autonomous driving, etc. should be encouraged.

In this year's government work report, it once again emphasized the necessity of vigorously promoting the construction of a modern industrial system, especially the urgency of accelerating the development of new productive forces, and clearly pointed out that we must actively create new growth engines such as biomanufacturing, commercial aerospace, and low-altitude economy. Among them, the low-level economy was included in the government work report for the first time.

At the end of March, four departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly released the "Implementation Plan for Innovative Application of General Aviation Equipment (2024-2030)", further proposing that new general aviation equipment will be commercially available by 2027;

And by 2030, the low-altitude economy has a clear goal of forming a trillion-level market size.

In April this year, the CCID Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially released the "Research Report on China's Low-altitude Economic Development (2024)".

According to the report, the scale of China's low-altitude economy has achieved significant growth in 2023, reaching 505.95 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 33.8%.

It is predicted that by 2026, the scale of my country's low-altitude economy is expected to exceed one trillion yuan, and is expected to reach 1,064.46 billion yuan.

A research report from Soochow Securities pointed out that by 2030, the size of my country's low-altitude economic market is expected to reach 2 trillion yuan.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China predicts that the market size of my country's low-altitude economy is expected to reach 1.5 trillion yuan by 2025, and is expected to climb to 3.5 trillion yuan by 2035.

The low-altitude economy white paper released by the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Digital Economy Research Institute also predicts that by 2025, the comprehensive contribution of the low-altitude economy to my country's national economy will reach 3 trillion to 5 trillion yuan.

In addition, from the perspective of industrial scale, as of February 2024, the number of companies in my country's low-altitude economic field has exceeded 57,000.

Judging from the time of establishment, the number of newly established companies in the past five years has reached nearly 21,000, accounting for nearly 80% of the total number of companies established in the past ten years, showing the strong development momentum in the low-altitude economic field.

From the perspective of industrial agglomeration, it can be clearly seen that the Pearl River Delta region represented by Shenzhen and the Yangtze River Delta region represented by Shanghai are currently the areas where low-altitude economic industries are most concentrated.

At the same time, Beijing has also achieved remarkable results in the low-altitude economic field by virtue of its rich industrial scientific and technological innovation resources.

However, although Hefei's foundation is relatively weak, the region is actively working to improve the industrial chain in order to achieve overtaking in the low-altitude economic field.

As an important field of low-altitude economic development, electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) is gradually emerging.

my country's UAV industry chain has been perfected and is actively promoting the development of the low-altitude economy with eVTOL as the core.

In 2023, thanks to the promotion of low-altitude economic policies and the acceleration of eVTOL commercialization, the scale of China's eVTOL industry will reach 980 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 77.3%.

From the perspective of regional distribution, Central South and East China are the main concentration areas of the eVTOL industry. At the same time, North China, Southwest, Northeast and Northwest China mainly focus on complete machine testing and key system supporting. The overall industrial scale of these four regions is approximately 300 million yuan.

Looking forward to 2024, the eVTOL industry is expected to usher in the first round of commercialization explosion cycle. With the acceleration of airworthiness certification for multiple aircraft models, the industry will maintain a high growth trend.

It is expected that by 2026, the eVTOL industry scale will reach 9.5 billion yuan.

After in-depth analysis, CCID Consulting has screened out 20 eVTOL companies with investment potential from the perspective of industrial links, including 9 complete machine companies and 11 key system companies.

It is worth noting that Shanghai occupies an important position among these enterprises, with a total of 5 enterprises located here, showing obvious advantages of industrial agglomeration.

Three companies from Guangdong Province were also selected, two of which are located in Guangzhou and one in Shenzhen.

In order to further improve the industrial layout, Shenzhen has actively introduced domestic leading companies in the eVTOL field in the past year, such as Germany's Lilium, Guangzhou Ehang and Shanghai Fengfei, etc. to fill in the industry's shortcomings and promote the sustainable development of the low-altitude economy.

At the end of February this year, the world's first cross-sea and cross-city eVTOL route completed its first flight in Shenzhen.

my country's eVTOL commercial development strategy can be divided into three key stages.

① From 2020 to 2025, we will focus on prototype testing and verification of passenger eVTOLs, and strive to realize the commercial operation of cargo eVTOLs.

② From 2025 to 2030, relying on the commercial operation foundation of freight eVTOL, the commercialization of manned passenger eVTOL will be gradually promoted.

③ From 2030 onwards, based on the successful commercialization of manned passenger eVTOLs and the significant increase in public recognition, product upgrades will be carried out to ultimately realize unmanned flight of eVTOLs.

According to statistics from the Aviation Industry Network, about 50 companies around the world have invested in the research and development of airworthiness stage products and have made significant progress.

Among these companies, EHang Intelligent is the only one that has obtained the standard airworthiness certificate issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China. At the same time, a few companies such as Xpeng Huitian and Wofei Changkong have also obtained special flight licenses.

In the field of eVTOL complete machine manufacturing, in addition to the many start-up companies that have emerged in recent years, aviation manufacturing companies such as Airbus, Boeing, and COMAC are also actively engaged in the research and development of eVTOL by establishing or acquiring subsidiaries.

At the same time, Volkswagen, Toyota, Xpeng and other car companies have also entered this field.

In February this year, Fengfei Airlines successfully completed the first flight of the world's first electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft on a cross-sea and cross-city air route (Shenzhen-Zhuhai). This achievement not only demonstrated the huge potential of eVTOL technology, but also provided new opportunities for future urban transportation. The innovation of methods provides new ideas.

In March, under the leadership of the Guangzhou Airport Economic Zone Management Committee, the Xpeng Huitian Flying Car Traveler -Low-altitude flight in the Canton Tower] area.

The success of this flight test not only marks the further verification of Xpeng Huitian’s technical strength in the eVTOL field, but also provides strong support for the future development of urban air transportation.

In October last year, EHang’s EH216-S aircraft obtained the world’s first manned unmanned aircraft system type certificate (TC certificate) issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China. This achievement has great [ice-breaking] significance for the industry and marks the The application of human-piloted aircraft in the field of manned transportation has officially received official recognition and support.

Among other start-ups in the eVTOL field, the projects of companies such as Fengfei Aviation and Yufeng Future have also entered the airworthiness certification stage. The commercialization progress of these companies has also injected new vitality into the entire industry.

This year, the low-altitude economic sector has performed well in the A-share market. According to statistics from choice, since February this year, at least 38 low-altitude economic concept stocks have increased by more than 30%, of which 5 companies have doubled their share prices, and the share price of the concept stock with the highest increase has tripled.

Among low-altitude economic concept stocks, Wanfeng Aowei and Ehang Intelligent have experienced particularly significant gains.

Especially Wanfeng Aowei, its stock price has increased by more than 171% since February, becoming the leader of the A-share low-priced economic sector.

As for EHang Intelligent, although it is listed on the US stock market and focuses more on performance than concept, its stock price also rose by more than 100% during the same period.

The development history of Wanfeng Aowei is worth mentioning. The company was initially mainly engaged in the production of motorcycle wheels and automobile parts, and later gradually transitioned into the aviation industry. In 2014, Wanfeng officially entered the aviation industry.

In February this year, Wanfeng Aowei announced that its subsidiary Wanfeng Aircraft would establish a joint venture with the head office of a world-renowned automobile OEM in China and carry out in-depth cooperation in the eVTOL field.

After the news was announced, Wanfeng Aowei's stock price began to rise sharply. In the 27 trading days from February 6 to yesterday's close, the cumulative increase exceeded 180%.

Another industry star that has attracted much attention is EHang Intelligent. Founded in 2014, the company is a technology enterprise focusing on intelligent autonomous aircraft.

Since its inception, it has attracted many investment institutions, including Qingyun Venture Capital, Galileo Capital, Lebo Capital, Zhen Fund and GGV Capital.

Two years later, EHang Intelligent launched the world's first manned autonomous aircraft and was listed on Nasdaq in 2019, becoming the world's first listed urban air transportation company.

In March this year, the news that EHang Intelligent launched eVTOL products on Taobao triggered widespread discussion, and its stock price continued to rise.

As the low-altitude economic sector becomes popular, more and more financing is emerging. According to public data, the current number of financings for eVTOL projects has reached 40, of which nearly half have been completed in the past two years.

Recently, Volante announced the completion of a 100 million yuan Series A financing. Although it was established less than three years ago, it has received funding from CDH Baifu, Zigong Chuangfa, Qingsong Fund, Gengxin Capital, Mingshi Capital, Shunwei Capital, It is favored by many investment institutions such as Zero2IPO Venture Capital and Zero2IPO Industrial Investment.

At the same time, Wofei Changkong, a brand of Geely Holding Group, also received two rounds of financing in 2023. Investors include Zhongke Chuangxing, Shengqian Capital, Hairui Investment, West China Jinzhi, Huakong Fund, Ceyuan Capital, and Yuanhe Origin, Geely Technology, etc., show the rising investment enthusiasm in this field.

With the vigorous development of the low-altitude economy, we can see that many companies and localities have begun to actively participate in the layout of this field.

The future competitive landscape will be more diversified, including not only traditional aviation companies, but also innovative companies such as emerging drone manufacturers and low-altitude traffic management platforms.

Formulating reasonable policies and strengthening infrastructure construction and technology research and development are key factors to promote the development of low-altitude economy.

Eventually, the potential of the low-altitude economy will be fully unleashed, bringing multiple benefits to society such as more efficient logistics and distribution, more convenient urban transportation, and wider agricultural applications.

Reference for some information: SMART: "Current Development Status of China's Low-altitude Economy Industry", Yongjin Investment: "Low-altitude Economy - The Future Trillion Market", Investment Circle: "Low-altitude Economy is Boiling", China Finance Press: "Low-altitude Economy is Boiling" How hot is the economy? Financing is hot, research is busy", Read Finance: "With a monthly increase of twice as much, what to invest in the low-altitude economy? 》

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