Luo Zhenhua, president of Shenzhen-based DJI, the world's largest commercial drone-maker, at Geekpark Innovation Festival 2018 on Jan 20, said the company's sales revenue for the past year had reached 18 billion yuan ($2.85 billion), an increase of 80 percent from the year before.

And according to Xie Tiandi, DJI's director of communications, most of the growth is being driven by the consumer market.

This is accompanied by the growing popularity of competitive photo contests.

The number of qualified entries for the annual drone photography contest held by online news portal Sohu grew from 2,160 in 2015 to 9,887 in 2017, including 652 short videos, according to Niu Ge, chief editor of Sohu UAV.

DJI's 2017 Skypixel Photo Contest attracted more than 40,000 entries from 141 countries and regions.

A recent review on aerial photography released by DJI's skypixel.com shows that in 2017, sunrises, sunsets and natural landscapes including beaches, mountains and forests are the most popular subjects. And "panorama" is the most favored shooting mode.