Thunder Tiger qualifies for Taiwan drone purchases, but with no guaranteed orders
The nine-ministry contract's budget is shared by all suppliers, and each agency orders only what it needs.
Thunder Tiger (雷虎科技), a Taichung-based maker of drones and radio-controlled models, says it has qualified as a supplier on all six items of a Taiwan government drone contract that bars mainland-funded bidders. The items run from training drones to long-range surveillance and transport drones.
The procurement department of Bank of Taiwan runs the contract for nine ministries, including the Ministry of National Defense (國防部). It is a joint supply contract: approved suppliers sell on its terms to any agency that orders, with no quantity guaranteed. The tender notice extends the bar to bidders funded from Hong Kong or Macau. Products must also meet made-in-Taiwan, supply-chain and cybersecurity rules.
The contract puts the risk on suppliers. It estimates 5,920 drone sets and a budget of NT$1.05 billion (about US$32.3 million) for the whole tender, a ceiling shared by every winner, not an order. No agency has to buy anything, and any number of suppliers may win each item, the tender instructions say. Thunder Tiger stressed in its Oct. 28 filing that its revenue from the deal depends on agencies’ orders. Even if agencies spent the full budget, it would come to less than Thunder Tiger’s 2025 revenue of about NT$1.42 billion (about US$43.8 million), by our calculation from its monthly revenue filings.
Suppliers don’t set the prices. The bank fixed one for each item, from NT$34,000 (about US$1,050) for a training drone to NT$1.35 million (about US$41,600) for a transport drone set, including tax and the bank’s fee, after asking vendors for price data in February, according to the tender instructions. Bidders were scored on their products, not on price. The contract can also push prices down: an agency that finds a contract price above market must report it, and the supplier must cut to the market price or have the product suspended.
Fifteen companies bid, and Thunder Tiger was the only one to bid on all six items, according to the bank’s list of bids opened July 27.
Thunder Tiger says the contract is meant to widen its government customer base. In July, its chairman said the company’s first Army training-drone contract laid a base for larger Defense Ministry purchases, and that its new Chiayi plant would help it move past sporadic orders.
The contract is part of a push to build demand for Taiwan-made drones. The Executive Yuan (行政院), Taiwan's cabinet, asked ministries in January to buy drones through it, aiming for a drone supply chain free of Chinese suppliers by 2027. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (經濟部) runs a six-year unmanned-vehicle program of about NT$44.2 billion (about US$1.36 billion), aiming to lift Taiwan's drone output above NT$40 billion (about US$1.23 billion) by 2030, the ministry said in a release reported by the Central News Agency.
Sources: 雷虎科技 Thunder Tiger (TWSE filing), 政府電子採購網 Government e-Procurement System (tender notice LP5-114063), 詠昇電子 Y-S Electronic (TPEx filing), 雷虎科技 Thunder Tiger monthly revenue (MOPS), 臺灣證券交易所 TWSE company list, 行政院 Executive Yuan, 中央社 CNA, Thunder Tiger Group, TTRobotix (Thunder Tiger) X-1300 EagleEyes product page
Editor: Ian Lamont
