DJI, Silicon Delta darling that dominates drone market, explores new frontiers
Shenzhen-based Da-Jiang Innovations, faced with competition from rivals such as Parrot and Xiaomi, pushes programming kit that lets drone buyers adapt them for use in areas such as science, agriculture and search and rescue
In April, a group of Finnish farmers outfitted a spindly black drone with a remote-controlled chainsaw and filmed it decapitating snowmen. They called it “Killer Drone”. The drone was a DJI S1000.
This spring, marine biologists flew a drone over the Gulf of California to capture samples of fluid sprayed from the blowholes of blue whales. They called it “SnotBot”. It was a DJI Inspire 1.
In March 2015, two men in Canada equipped a sleek, white drone with Roman candle fireworks and sprinted away shirtless as the machine fired spark-spewing projectiles. They called it “Roman Candle Attack Drone 2.0”. It was a DJI Phantom 2.
DJI, which stands for Da-Jiang Innovations, is a medium-sized company based in Shenzhen, China, and it essentially put recreational drone flying on the map. Fans call it the “Apple of Drones”, and for good reason – the company owns 70 per cent of the consumer drone market, analysts say. As of March, it was valued at about US$8 billion. It may be the first Chinese company to create, and then dominate, a hot new class of consumer electronics.