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Poladrone Solutions Sdn. Bhd. (Poladrone) has undergone a rebranding exercise and resumed business under the Aonic brand.

“Our rebranding exercise demonstrates our commitment to our clients and customer base to provide them with a holistic ecosystem beyond our core drone capabilities, so that we can serve them better,” says Cheong Jin Xi, Founder of and CEO at Poladrone.

Cheong established Poladrone in 2016 as a drone company to provide services related to automation and analytics to clients across various industries. Having established the widest agriculture drone service centre network in Malaysia, the company expanded beyond drones into other solutions (e.g., survey equipment and solutions).

“We chose the word ‘Aonic’ for its association with the term ‘aeonic’, which means lasting for an aeon,” Cheong states. Aonic is also a near-anagram for ‘action,’” explained Cheong. “Through our multiple verticals and over the years, we realised our customers’ needs are ever-evolving, expanding beyond drone-related services. Our aim is for our clients to associate Aonic with never-ending action; always adding on new and innovative capabilities in what we deliver to our clients.”

The company also took the opportunity to launch its new retail business vertical, adding to its existing four verticals of Agriculture, Enterprise (now Industrial), Services and Academy.

Aonic Agriculture pioneered point-to-point agriculture spraying solutions in the Southeast Asian region. Its Oryctes & Mist Drone autonomous agriculture drones were designed and developed in-house, enabling the agriculture community to manage farms and plantations effectively. Using drones for data collection, Aonic Agriculture processes and analyses various data points to provide recommendations and preventive actions to oil palm plantation owners. In order to lower the barrier of entry for farmers to adopt agricultural drones, Aonic Agriculture also provides financing under its AonicFlex programme.

• Aonic Industrial works with global brands such as DJI Enterprise (for whom it is the only Gold dealer in the country), Emlid, FLIR, Sentera and Micasense, amongst others, to provide various enterprise drone products for commercial use, boosting cost and time efficiency in day-to-day operational workflows.
• Aonic Services specialises in aerial mapping and surveying. Thanks to the in-house developed AI algorithms from Aonic Agriculture, and as a demonstration of synergy between the different verticals, Aonic Services has mapped & analysed over 1.2 million hectares of agricultural land. It also provides turnkey solutions such as crop health detection, visual inspection, and thermal inspection.
• Aonic Academy—Drone Academy Asia—provides commercial drone training to individuals and organisations to effectively implement drone programmes in existing workflows. This is the first drone academy in Malaysia to have raised the adoption of industrial drones, trained more than 2000 drone operators and subsequently recognised as the first Remote Pilot Training Organisation by the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia.

The new Retail vertical will enable prospective customers and clients to purchase drones and spare parts from eCommerce platforms, Aonic’s own Web store and through brick-and-mortar service centres in various agricultural towns throughout the country and in Thailand. These centres will also provide after-sales support, service, and maintenance. Additionally, the Service Centres will also act as Centres of Excellence, where industrial training and knowledge sharing will be conducted to boost the adoption of drone technology.

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