Hong Kong lures world's top drone maker DJI back from Shenzhen with vast talent pool, changing business climate

For Hong Kong, DJI still ranks as the one that got away. 

The idea for the US$10 billion start-up was first conceived in the city but the company, which now ranks as the world’s largest drone maker, is based on the other side of the Chinese border in the former boomtown of Shenzhen. 

Luckily for Hong Kong, DJI is making at least a partial return to its roots in a bid to find talented staff to boost its research and development efforts, and the local authorities aim not to blow it this time. 

DJI founder Frank Wang Tao, a mainland Chinese graduate of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, opted to build the company in Shenzhen, in the southern province of Guangdong, after becoming frustrated by the lack of government support and funding in Hong Kong when he graduated in 2006. 

The company, which stands as a massive success story and now controls 70 per cent of the global market for civilian drones, moved into a 20,000-square-foot (1,858-sq-m) lab at Hong Kong Science and Technology Park earlier this year.

“I wouldn’t say that we ever really left, because Hong Kong has a number of advantages,” said Michael Perry, director of communications for DJI.