US drone program rejects Amazon and China’s DJI, taps Apple instead
No reason given for tech giants’ exclusion but official says there were ultimately ‘no losers’ in the rigourous selection process
The US Transportation Department’s 10 winning drone pilot projects aimed at spurring the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in a wide variety of fields do not include Amazon.com Inc and China’s DJI, but do involve Apple, Alphabet Inc, and Microsoft Corp.
The pilot program is aimed at producing data to assist the Federal Aviation Administration in establishing rules and regulations to safely integrate drones at scale. The FAA still must decide questions before the pilot projects begin including whether drone deliveries should follow city streets or cross backyards.
Missing from the projects are Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, and DJI, the world’s largest maker of non-military drones. Over 140 applications were made and about a dozen were rejected. An application that would have seen Amazon deliver goods by drone to shoppers in New York City was also declined, a person familiar with the matter said.
The rejection was yet another stumbling block for DJI’s plans to go mainstream. The Shenzhen-based company was mired in controversy last year after the US Army banned the use of its drones due to security concerns. It later introduced a mode that allows users to fly their devices without any data exchange with the internet and commissioned a review of its security practices, a preliminary report of which was released in January. DJI remains the top drone manufacturer in the world, commanding an estimated 70 per cent global market share.