Drone stocks: Ideaforge Technology, Zen Tech, BEL shares rally up to 15% today; here's why 

Makers of domestic drones and anti-drone systems saw their stocks rallying 12 per cent in Friday's trade amid hopes demand for such sophisticated defence systems may rise amid escalating India-Pakistani tensions. To recall, Pakistan’s military had a day earlier accused India of launching drone strikes on multiple targets, including Karachi and Lahore, using advanced Israeli-made loitering munitions. The drones in question were HAROP and Heron Mark-2.

On Friday, Ideaforge Technology led the gainers, surging 15.28 per cent to Rs 445 on BSE. A vertically-integrated company, Ideaforge Technology design, develop, and manufacture indigenous UAVs. This stock gained even as the company reported a net loss of Rs 25.71 crore for the March quarter.  

Zen Technologies, which offers anti-drone system, hit its 5 per cent upper circuit limit at Rs 1,406.35. Zen's systems work on drone detection, classification and tracking on passive surveillance, camera sensors and neutralisation of the threat through jamming the Drone communication. 

Bharat Electronics climbed 3.41 per cent to Rs 317.25. BEL offers Counter Drone System, which are developed by DRDO and productionised by the PSU defence manufacturer. The Counter Drone System (D4 System) is capable of performing real time search, detection, tracking and neutralisation of the flying micro and small UAVs.

Paras Defence and Space Technologies Ltd gained 4.24 per cent to Rs 1,418.40. A subsidiary Paras Aerospace is is involved in making drones, drone services and associated technologies.

In its earnings report, IdeaForge Technology noted that FY25 saw a substantial slowdown for the broader drone industry in India, owing to the general elections in the first part and then the slow progress towards procurement initiatives, despite the latent demand.

The industry started to regain momentum at the end of the year with the new emergency procurement cycle for CICT operations going into tendering phase in Q4, along with trials of many other civil programs as well towards the
end of the same quarter.

"And thus, while we did not see closure of opportunities to orderbook in Q4, we now see their healthy progression to our L1 pipeline," it said. Ideaforge said it transitioned from a drone manufacturer to a drone solution provider in FY25.

Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd also advanced 2.65 per cent to Rs 4,536.40. The HAL RUAV-200, or Rotary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, is a high-altitude, medium-endurance drone being developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the Indian Army.

Earlier Elbit Systems, the Israeli defence tech giant listed on NYSE, recently saw its shares rallying following India’s Operation Sindoor, which marked the first known operational deployment of SkyStriker kamikaze drones -- a weapon jointly developed by Elbit Systems and Alpha Design Technologies, now part of the Adani Group. 

Meanwhile, India said over 50 drones were successfully neutralised during a large-scale counter-drone operation conducted by Indian Army air defence units in Udhampur, Samba, Jammu, Akhnoor, Nagrota, and Pathankot.