We recently published a list of the 10 Best Drone Stocks to Buy According to Billionaires. In this article, we look at where Honeywell International Inc. (NASDAQ:HON) stands against other best drone stocks.
Over the past week, swarms of loitering drones filled the skies of India and Pakistan as the two nuclear-armed neighbors in South Asia waged what the BBC described as the world’s first drone war. This revolution in warfare has blurred the lines between man and machine, resulting in a need for a reassessment of military capabilities.
READ ALSO: 10 Best Military Drone Stocks to Buy Now and Goldman Sachs Defense Stocks: Top 12 Stock Picks.
Drones were a prominent feature of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and have also clouded the skies across several towns and cities during the Russia-Ukraine war. With the demand for drones surging over the last few years, defense tech start-ups such as Anduril Industries are redefining modern warfare through the next generation of autonomous, AI-driven systems.
The company has built a range of modular, AI-guided drones and uncrewed aircraft for the US military, which is presenting a challenge for traditional defense contractors, due to its superior tech defense capabilities that are cheaper and autonomous.
In December last year, Anduril announced a partnership with OpenAI, which will further enable the deployment of advanced AI systems for defense missions. The move is part of a growing trend among artificial intelligence companies to walk back bans on the military use of their products, with many firms entering into partnerships with the Department of Defense.
Anduril is also working on guarding against the threats posed by UAVs. In October 2024, the DoD awarded a $250 million contract to the company to counter drone attacks against American forces. Under the contract, the US will receive 500 recoverable Roadrunner interceptors, which are reusable drones that can intercept incoming drones or land back on the ground if they are not engaged.
When people think of drones, they often associate them with expensive military aircraft or personal recreational use. However, several corporations are now utilizing drones for commercial applications, such as deliveries, data collection, and inspections.
According to a report in January this year, the global commercial drone market size was estimated to have a value of $29.91 billion in 2024. It is projected to reach $33.96 billion in 2025 and climb to $93.78 billion by 2033, amid a surge in the deployment of drones for commercial operations.
With that said, let’s now head over to the list of the best drone stocks to buy according to billionaires.
A shot of a commercial plane with a blur of color in the background, representing the production of auxiliary power units in the Safety and Productivity Solutions segment.
Our Methodology
We sampled stocks from ETFs with exposure to drones and our previous articles on the subject. The pool of stocks included both military and non-military drone companies that develop and explore solutions to enable drone technologies to operate more efficiently.
From there, we picked the top 10 stocks with the highest number of billionaires having a stake in them, as per Insider Monkey’s Q4 2024 proprietary database of billionaires’ stock holdings. Where two or more stocks were tied on billionaire sentiment, we used the dollar value of billionaire holdings as a tiebreaker between them.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
Honeywell International Inc. (NASDAQ:HON)
Number of Billionaires: 13
Billionaire Holdings: $804,066,772
Honeywell International Inc. (NASDAQ:HON) is an integrated operating company that helps organizations address their most complex challenges in aviation, automation, and energy transition. It is an important player in the military drone market.
The company’s share price has surged by 10% over the past month, with a major spike following the first quarter 2025 results on April 29 in which the industrial and aerospace giant beat analysts’ expectations for revenue and profit. Honeywell International Inc. (NASDAQ:HON) also lifted its adjusted EPS guidance for the full year, despite flagging a $500 million exposure to tariffs.
In October last year, Honeywell International Inc. (NASDAQ:HON) partnered with Merlin Labs to bring autonomy to a wide range of aircraft, including military fleets, by integrating its advanced avionics suite with Merlin’s non-human pilot system to reduce pilot workloads during special missions.
On April 29, the US Army picked Near Earth Autonomy and Honeywell International Inc. (NASDAQ:HON) to lead a $15 million program to deliver an autonomous Black Hawk logistics solution. Under the agreement, the two companies will retrofit the helicopters with advanced autonomy kits, transforming the aircraft into high-tempo, uncrewed logistics platforms.
Honeywell International Inc. (NASDAQ:HON) is one of the best drone stocks to buy. According to Insider Monkey’s database, 13 billionaires held a stake in the company as of Q4 2024. Wall Street analysts are bullish on the stock with a consensus Buy rating and an average share price upside potential of 8.24%.
Overall, HON ranks 6th among the 10 Best Drone Stocks to Buy According to Billionaires. While we acknowledge the potential of HON as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than HON but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
