ABOUT DJI

SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. or Shenzhen DJI Sciences and Technologies Ltd. (Chinese: 深圳大疆创新科技有限公司) in full, more popularly known as its trade name DJI, which stands for Da-Jiang Innovations (大疆创新; 'Great Frontier Innovations'), is a Chinese technology company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, with manufacturing facilities throughout the world. DJI manufactures commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for aerial photography and videography. It also designs and manufactures camera gimbals, action cameras, camera stabilizers, flight platforms, propulsion systems and flight control systems.

In November 2015, DJI announced the establishment of a strategic partnership with Hasselblad.

In January 2019, DJI acquired a majority stake in Hasselblad, a Swedish camera company.

DJI accounts for around 70% of the world's consumer drone market as of March 2020, with no other company accounting for more than 5%. Its camera drone technology is widely used in the music, television and film industries. The company's products have also been used by militaries and police forces, as well as terrorist groups, with the company taking steps to limit access to the latter. Some US government institutions have issued statements discouraging their internal use of DJI products, but as of 2020, various agencies at the local and federal level continue to use DJI products.

History

The company was founded in 2006 by Frank Wang (Wāng Tāo, 汪滔). Born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, he enrolled as a college student in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 2003. He was part of the HKUST team participating in ABU Robocon and won third prize.

Wang built the first prototypes of DJI's projects in his dorm room, selling the flight control components to universities and Chinese electric companies. He used the proceeds to move to the industrial hub of Shenzhen and hired a small number of staff in 2006. The company struggled at first, with a high degree of churn among employees that has been attributed to Wang's abrasive personality and perfectionist expectations of his employees. The company sold a modest amount of components during this period, relying as well on financial support from Wang's family friend, Lu Di, who provided US$90,000 and managed the company's finances. In 2009, DJI's components allowed a team to successfully pilot a drone around the peak of Mt. Everest.

In 2010, Wang hired a high school friend, Swift Xie Jia, to run the company's marketing. DJI began to cater more to drone hobbyists in markets outside of China. In 2011, Wang met Colin Guinn at a trade show, and the two of them founded DJI North America, a subsidiary company focusing on mass market drone sales. In 2013, DJI released the first model of the Phantom drone, an entry-level drone which was more user-friendly than other drones on the market at the time.

The Phantom was commercially successful, but it led to conflict between Guinn and Wang. Midway through the year, Wang made an offer to buy Guinn out, which Guinn refused. By the end of the year, DJI had locked all employees of the North American subsidiary out of their email accounts and was well on its way to shutting down the subsidiary's operations. Guinn sued DJI, with the case being settled out of court.

In 2015, DJI eclipsed the success of the Phantom with the release of the Phantom 3, whose even greater popularity was in part due to the addition of a built in live-streaming camera. DJI was now the largest consumer drone company in the world, driving many of its competitors out of the market over the following years. 2015 also marked the beginning of DJI's RoboMaster Robotics Competition (机甲大师赛), an annual international collegiate robot combat tournament held at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Centre.

In 2017, DJI won a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for its camera drone technology, which was used in the filming of various television shows including The Amazing Race, American Ninja Warrior, Better Call Saul and Game of Thrones. That same year, Wang became Asia's youngest tech billionaire, and world's very first drone billionaire.

Also in 2017, signed a strategic cooperation agreement to provide surveillance drones for use by the Chinese police in Xinjiang.

On 5 June 2018, police body cam and Taser maker Axon announced a partnership with DJI to sell surveillance drones to U.S. police departments.As of 2020, DJI products are also widely used by U.S. police and fire departments.

On 21 January 2019, DJI announced that an internal probe had uncovered "extensive" fraud by certain employees who "inflated the costs of parts and materials for certain products for personal financial gain." DJI estimated the cost of the fraud at "up to CN¥1 billion" (US$147 million), but maintained that the company "did not incur a full year loss in 2018."

In January 2020, the United States Department of the Interior announced that it would be grounding around 800 drones, which it had been using for wildlife conservation and infrastructure monitoring purposes. As of March 2020, DJI holds nearly 77% of the US market share for consumer drones, with no other company holding more than 4%.

In 2020, DJI drones are being used by many countries around the world to combat the Coronavirus. In China, DJI drones are used by the police force to remind people to wear masks. In other countries, such as Morocco and Saudi Arabia, DJI drones are used to disinfect urban areas and monitor human temperatures in order to contain the spread of Coronavirus.

Corporation structure and infrastructure

In 2018, DJI raised roughly $1 billion in funds in preparation for an envisioned IPO at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As of July 2020, these rumors persisted with no indication that an IPO is forthcoming. The company had previously raised $500 million in a 2015 funding round from investors including New China Life Insurance Co Ltd, GIC, and New Horizon Capital, the latter being co-founded by the son of China's former premier minister Wen Jiabao.

DJI counts roughly 14,000 employees and has 17 offices internationally. The company is known for having a very difficult hiring process, as well as an extremely competitive internal culture, where teams are often pitted against each other to design better products.

DJI's factories in Shenzhen include highly sophisticated automated assembly lines. Many of the components for these assembly lines are built in-house.

Controversies

Privacy and security concerns in the U.S.

In August 2017, the United States Army published internal guidance banning the use of DJI products for security reasons, although as of 2019 other branches of the US military continue to use its products in a limited capacity.

On 17 November 2017, Ars Technica reported a security breach of private customer data at DJI that was uncovered by security researcher Kevin Finisterre. The company denied the existence of such a breach, and subsequently added an offline mode that allows its drones to fly without transferring data over the internet. The Register reported in August 2017 that the DJI's Go app contains a framework that allows DJI to make "substantial changes" to the app without triggering a review by Apple. According to Kevin Finisterre, the hot-patch mechanism would've allowed DJI to covertly update the app without first seeking user consent, a critical security flaw.

In 2018, Kivu Consulting released a report commissioned by DJI that largely refuted the allegations related to DJI's mishandling of user data. However, the report confirmed that the DJI GO 4 mobile app did transfer information to Chinese servers through a crash reporting app called Bugly.

In January 2020, the United States Department of the Interior announced that it would be grounding around 800 DJI drones over security concerns, which it had been using for wildlife conservation and infrastructure monitoring purposes.

In a May 2020 report analyzing the data use of DJI's Mimo app, which is used to control the Osmo gimbles from a smartphone, security research company River Loop Security made several discoveries "of concern" for users and policy-makers. According to the researchers, the app sends a variety of data, including sensitive personal information, through insecure means to servers located in China without user consent, raising suspicions that personal user data could be freely accessible to the Chinese authorities. User information was also sent to third-party servers, "where the Terms of Use Agreement supports cooperation with the Chinese Government."

In July 2020, two reports on the security of the DJI GO 4 mobile app found that it was highly obfuscated to prevent security analysis, collected user information from phones and was able to force the installation of updates or other applications. The app was also found to be able to download and install arbitrary applications, although this required approval by the user. Furthermore, the app restarted after being closed and continued running in the background and sending telemetry requests while the user believes it to be inactive. Because of the far-reaching permissions to use the app means that servers owned by DJI or Weibo "have almost full control over the user's phone." Furthermore, Google's app store was unable to do any verification of any updates pushed by DJI. No issues related to hidden updates were found on the app's iOS version.

In August 2020, Synacktiv alleged that DJI's Pilot app shares many of the same issues present in DJI GO 4, which DJI denied.

In November 2020, senators Chris Coons, Rick Scott, and others criticized a decision by the United States Air Force to purchase DJI drones on security grounds.

U.S. sanctions

In December 2020, the United States Department of Commerce added DJI to the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List. In January 2021, Trump signed an executive order mandating the removal of Chinese-made drones from U.S. government fleets.

Pentagon Analysis

In May 2021, United States Department of Defense issued an analysis on DJI products. The unclassified portion of the report concluded that two types of drone in the DJI "Government Edition" line-up shows "no malicious code or intent and are recommended for use by government entities and forces working with US services." This is according to a summary obtained by The Hill though the Defense Department did not respond to an inquiry asking for elaboration.

Incidents involving DJI products

In January 2015, a Phantom 3 crashed into the White House's south lawn, in Washington, D.C., US. DJI later set up a no-fly Geo-system according to prohibited airspace, and forced all drones to update the firmware. The new system will forbid flights getting closer or take off in restricted zones based on its GPS location.

In the 2015 Tokyo drone incident, a DJI Phantom 2 drone carrying radioactive material was landed on the Prime Minister's Official Residence. Subsequently, the National Diet passed a law restricting drone flights near government buildings and nuclear sites.

In 2016, ISIS used DJI drones as exploding devices in Iraq. DJI later created a broad no-fly zone over nearly all of Iraq and Syria. That year, a DJI drone was nearly involved in a midair collision with a Chinese fighter jet. The Chinese government subsequently insisted that DJI develop an air traffic registry to track its drones within China.

On 30 March 2018, Israel Defense Forces used DJI's Matrice 600 drone to drop tear gas from above, causing injuries, panic and death during Gaza and West Bank protests.

On 4 August 2018, two Matrice 600 drones detonated explosives near Avenida Bolívar, Caracas in an apparent attempt to assassinate Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.