EO is often used synonymously with Earth imaging, which is a $3 billion market, according to Theresa Condor, VP of corporate development at Spire. However, EO is significantly larger than this and also covers, for example, new infrared observing systems and weather data from satellites - a market valued at twice that of Earth imaging at around $6 billion a year, explains Condor. "Some would also add the opportunities from the Internet of Things (loT)/Machine-to-Machine (M2M) markets that are related to sensing the Earth in situ in remote locations, as well as observing and tracking ships, planes and trucks. In combination, these are also very sizeable markets. Overall, the Earth observation market is more than $10 billion, a multiple of just optical Earth imagery. It is this latter market that is particularly crowded and competitive, yet clearly still ripe with opportunities as new companies are getting funded," says Condor.
展开▼
