Facing uncertainty: DJI’s future amid US regulations

In December 2025, the US announced a ban on all new foreign-manufactured unmanned aerial systems (UAS), a ban which includes all new models produced by China’s—and the world’s—best-known drone brand, DJI. Existing models already in the US, as well as previously authorized models, are still permitted to be sold—as long as stocks last.

DJI dominates the global drone market, with industry estimates placing DJI’s share of the global consumer drone market at over 70%. The US accounts for around 34% of the worldwide market, yet it offers few meaningful competitors to DJI.

DJI’s predicament highlights a core question: can US regulation meaningfully slow a company that not only popularized civilian drones, but now sets industry performance benchmarks?

“Arguably, the biggest challenge in the coming decade will be market restrictions put in place on the notion of security risk,” says Tom Nunlist, Associate Director of Tech and Data Policy, Trivium. “The question is how much the lost market access in the US, EU and elsewhere will matter in the context of a global marketplace.”

From a Shenzhen startup to a global standard

DJI was founded in 2006 in Shenzhen by Frank Wang Tao, then a university student researching flight-control systems for small unmanned aircraft. In its early years, DJI focused on software and control systems to make drones stable and usable.

From initially selling components for DIY drones, DJI then released its first full drone, the Phantom 1, in 2013.

While many Chinese tech companies have gone public, DJI remains privately owned. This has allowed it to reinvest heavily in research and development, maintain control over its supply chain, and avoid the short-term pressures that come with public markets. DJI has also limited the amount of financial information it makes public, although its last public valuation, done in 2018, put the company at $15 billion. The current valuation would be far larger than that.

Chris Pereira, CEO of iMpact, a consultancy supporting Chinese companies in their global expansion, says that he sees DJI’s evolution over the past decade as a shift from a hardware-centric innovator to a full-stack systems company.

“Early inflection points included its move from hobbyist drones to professional imaging platforms, followed by deep vertical integration across flight control, sensors, imaging, and software,” he says. “More recently, DJI has emphasized reliability, enterprise use cases, and ecosystem control. This reflects its transition from rapid disruptor to global category leader.”

From drones to cameras and gimbals

DJI has expanded its product portfolio over the years, but drones remain the core of its business.

Consumer drones are the company’s most visible products and make up an estimated 70% of the company’s revenue. Models such as the Mavic and Mini series dominate global sales. These consumer drones are difficult to match in terms of both affordability—ranging from around $700 to $2000 or so—and performance: they combine long flight times, high-quality cameras, easy operability, and advanced obstacle avoidance.

Enterprise drones are a fast-growing segment for the company. DJI supplies various drones designed for uses such as industrial inspection, public safety, construction, surveying, and agriculture.

Beyond drones, DJI has moved into the camera and stabilization business. Its gimbals and handheld cameras, in particular the Osmo line, are increasingly competing with professional filming equipment, offering advanced stabilization and other features while still being easy to use for a layperson. These products have allowed DJI to gain a strong foothold in the social media creator sector.

Most of DJI’s manufacturing is concentrated in the tech hub of Shenzhen, where it has the advantage of access to one of the world’s most developed electronics supply chains—dense clusters of component suppliers, testing houses, and assembly lines that drastically lower turnaround time and costs.

While DJI does not publish specific figures, its drones are known to be the largest contributor to the company’s overall revenue. Cameras and other stabilization equipment make up much of the remainder.

From a customer perspective, DJI straddles both B2C and B2B markets. Consumer sales make up the bulk volume and arguably do the most for brand recognition, while enterprise clients deliver larger profit margins due to more premium products.

Technology and R&D

At the heart of DJI’s dominance is engineering. Unlike some competitors who rely heavily on outsourcing components, DJI has invested heavily in proprietary systems for both its software and hardware.

Propulsion and flight systems are one pillar of DJI’s technology. Motors, batteries, and power-management systems are optimized for efficiency and reliability, meaning their products are able to deliver longer flight times and more consistent performance. These systems are integrated with the products’ flight control software, allowing precise adjustments in real time.

Stabilization and gimbals are another pillar. DJI’s expertise in stabilization, using technology originally developed for its drones and other UAS products, has been applied across its product lines. As a result, DJI products, whether drones, cameras or otherwise, have become known for their incredibly smooth video quality.

Imaging and optical architecture also play a key role. DJI’s camera systems balance sensor size, weight, power consumption, and image quality. While not all its sensors are produced in-house, the integration of its imaging architecture with stabilization hardware gives its products a significant edge.

Increasingly, DJI is developing its drones beyond simple remote-controlled devices.

Pereira says that the company is redefining the category itself. “DJI has steadily shifted drones from remote-controlled machines into autonomous sensing platforms,” he says. “This transition—from a ‘flying camera’ to a ‘mobile sensor’—is central to its future relevance, particularly in areas like agriculture, public safety, infrastructure inspection, and filmmaking.”

Trivium’s Nunlist says that this shift will not play out evenly across geographies. “Urban areas will obviously face constraints in terms of airspace capacity, as well as concerns like noise pollution and security,” he says. “What’s underappreciated is the role drones will play in rural settings, where there is both a strong commercial logic for things like agriculture use cases, and fewer practical constraints.”

This dynamic is likely to shape where large-scale drone deployment becomes economically viable first.

DJI has “increasingly formalized what was once an informal innovation process,” Pereira says. “Rapid prototyping remains central, but what people often call ‘Shenzhen speed’ is now paired with rigorous testing regimes and software-based safeguards.” He adds that this has allowed the company to shorten development cycles without compromising on safety or certification requirements in major markets.

Competitor comparison

Despite regulatory pressures from the US, DJI remains incredibly competitive globally in its offerings. The company’s drones continue to dominate the global market, making up for almost three-quarters of all drones sold worldwide.

DJI’s drones continue to set benchmarks in flight time, obstacle avoidance, stabilization, and imaging quality. This is due mainly to the fact that its drones are produced largely using its own components, allowing for greater integration—and thus performance—than many rivals.

The only significant competitors to DJI in the US are mainly outside of the mass-market consumer drone sector and focus more on industrial drones. Its most significant rival is most likely Skydio, which is known for its AI-driven autonomous drones which it supplies to the US government and other military agencies. Others, such as AeroVironment and Teal Drones, also supply drones for military use, while Freefly and AgEagle are known for their agricultural and industrial drones. Nevertheless, these companies still struggle to match DJI in terms of cost and usability, and so see limited uptake in commercial markets.

Pereira thinks that the risk to DJI comes less from technical displacement and more from regulatory exclusion.

“In consumer drones, DJI faces limited near-term threats due to high technical and brand barriers,” he says. “The greater competitive pressure is emerging in enterprise and industrial applications, where specialized players who are often backed by governments or national defense ecosystems are targeting niche use cases such as mapping, inspection, or security.”

Rui Ma, founder of Tech Buzz China, says that DJI’s evolution—both strategic and product—has been shaped as much by geopolitical sensitivity as engineering. “My general understanding is that DJI has been diversifying for years already,” she says, “but this is probably speeding up as drones have become much more geopolitically sensitive and strategically important. Drones now sit at the intersection of hardware, sensing, autonomy, and data, which naturally puts them under a lot more scrutiny.”

Regulation

And this is where the US’s new regulations present the biggest threat to DJI. Under the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, the FCC was required to review foreign drone manufacturers over concerns mainly relating to the collection and use of data, as well as the potential for products being used for foreign surveillance.

With the addition of foreign-manufactured UAS and components to that list on 22 December 2025, new models from DJI and other companies can no longer receive the equipment authorizations needed to enter the US market.

While existing drones do remain legal to operate under current US law, and previously approved models can circulate, the inability to import or sell new DJI drones and drone-related products in the US cuts the company off entirely from future commercial opportunities in what had been one of its larger markets.

This will no doubt be felt across American industries, and the transition to locally produced alternatives is likely to be slow and costly. Competitors will need to not only match the benchmarks DJI has set in terms of drone performance, but also affordability.

Geopolitical tensions are also reshaping how DJI structures its global business. In North America and parts of Europe, the company has leaned into transparency initiatives, third-party security audits, and localized data-control options designed to reassure regulators and enterprise customers. At the same time, it has expanded more aggressively into markets with a more relaxed regulatory framework.

This has effectively pushed DJI toward a more regionally segmented strategy, rather than treating Western markets as the core of its international growth.

The need to adapt

DJI has become synonymous with consumer drones in much the same way Apple has with smartphones. It has set the benchmarks for drone performance and continues to do so, in terms of ease of use, stabilization, camera quality, and cost.

As the US moves to isolate its domestic drone market from foreign manufacturers, DJI is about to lose access to one of its most commercially valuable regions. For American users and industries, the short-term result is likely to be fewer choices, higher prices, and slower innovation. For DJI, it is a reminder that technological superiority does not automatically translate into political acceptance.

Yet the company’s future will be shaped less by whether it can build better drones than by whether it can navigate an increasingly fragmented global regulatory landscape.

“The main constraints will be political rather than technical. Market access and trust will be key,” Pereira says. “DJI’s future success will depend less on whether it can build better drones, and more on whether it can operate as a trusted global infrastructure technology provider.”

Rui Ma also notes the resilience of the DJI brand and its user base. “DJI has built an enormous amount of brand recognition and goodwill with users over the years, and I expect that loyalty will carry them wherever they’re allowed to operate. Just where they’re allowed to operate is an open question,” she says.