ASIA / PACIFIC
January 19, 2015
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Chinese upstart takes lead
in fast-growing drone market
By Joe McDonald
AP Business Writer
S
HENZHEN, China
—
An
amateur
photographer
in
Portsmouth, New Hamp-
shire drew crowds when he
used a drone mini-helicop-
ter made by China’s DJI
Technology Co. to capture
images of historic church
steeples and other sights.
“I get some amazing
photos with it,” said Scott
Richardson, a voice teacher
who bought DJI’s four-
rotor Phantom 2 Vision+
model in May. “With a
drone, you can hover three
feet above the steeple and
get a picture you can’t get
any other way.”
Founded in 2009 by an
engineer with a childhood
love of radio-controlled
model planes, DJI has
become the world’s biggest
supplier of civilian drones
— possibly the first Chi-
nese company to achieve
that status in any con-
sumer industry.
It has grown from 20
employees to a workforce of
2,800, including Chinese,
Americans, and Koreans at
its headquarters in the
southern Chinese city and
at outposts in Los Angeles,
Tokyo, and Frankfurt,
Germany.
“It’s really amazing what
they have managed to do,”
said
industry
analyst
Maryanna Saenko of Lux
Research Inc. in Boston.
From the start, DJI was
“very polished, had just the
right capabilities and the
right price point” — less
than $1,000 when most
rivals cost at least $5,000,
Saenko said. “They hit the
sweet spot.”
DJI’s latest model, the
Inspire 1, released in No-
vember, carries a camera
that can send live video to a
PILOTING THE MARKET. A security guard watches a demon-
stration of a DJI Technology Co. Inspire 1 drone in Shenzhen, China.
Founded in 2009 by an engineer with a childhood love of radio-controlled
model planes, DJI has become the world’s leading supplier in the fast-
growing market for civilian drones — possibly the first Chinese brand
to achieve No. 1 status in a global consumer product. (AP Photo/Kin
Cheung)
smartphone, with a GPS per year.
For professional use, DJI
system to compensate for
wind and hold it still in launched its Spreading
Wings series of bigger
midair.
The company is part of copters with up to eight
an emerging wave of Chi- rotors last year. They offer
nese startups in fields such advanced steering and
as robotics, clean energy, image-stabilizing systems
and telecommunications. and sell for up to $10,000.
Richardson, a former
The Communist Party
news
photographer, said he
hopes they transform the
country from the world’s got on DJI’s waiting list for
low-wage factory into a the latest Phantom model
creator of profitable tech- as soon as he read about it.
“I use it mostly to take
nology.
DJI and its rivals, pictures from vantage
including France’s Parrot points that you couldn’t get
SA and 3D Robotics Inc. of any other way,” he said.
North
the United States, foresee Portsmouth’s
demand for drones to shoot Church has been around
movies and news footage, since the 1600s, but he gets
survey farmland or oil- photos of it that “have
fields, inspect power lines never been taken, ever.”
In February 2012, DJI
and oil pipelines, and give
firefighters a bird’s-eye released its first full-
fledged drone, the spindly
view of burning buildings.
Privately owned DJI, Flame Wheel. Later that
based in Shenzhen, on the year, it added a camera to
outskirts of Hong Kong, the first Phantom after see-
declined to disclose sales or ing customers mount Go-
profit figures. But founder Pro Inc.’s wearable video
Frank Wang told the South cameras on their drones.
Since then, research has
China Morning Post in
Hong Kong that revenue in spread to include cameras,
2013 was $131 million. The software for imaging, and
company says revenue control and stabilization
grows by 300 to 500 percent systems. Expanding be-
yond drones, the company
has used its know-how in
stabilizing images to create
the Ronin, a handheld
camera mount. Priced at
$3,000, it is marketed as a
lower-cost alternative to
steady cam systems used
by film and TV studios.
The company has opened
its software-development
process to outsiders to
create additional tools. A
Swiss software maker,
Pix4D, has designed an
application to transform
images shot by DJI or other
drones into three-dimen-
sional maps. It says its next
smartphone model will
have an app to control a
DJI drone and receive live
video.
In October, the company
briefly entered American
pop culture when charac-
ters on the “South Park”
cartoon used a video-
equipped drone modelled
on DJI’s Phantom to spy
paparazzi-style on their
neighbors.
DJI rolls out new models
as little as five months
apart, a rapid pace that
reflects intense competi-
tion with smaller brands
promising lower prices and
more features.
“The development cycle
is tricky,” company spokes-
man Michael Perry said.
Referring to the Inspire 1,
he said, “One of the main
reasons we wanted to get
this out is, we didn’t want
anyone else to do it first.”
Unusual for a startup,
DJI handles almost every
step of its process itself,
from research and pro-
duction through worldwide
sales and repairs. That has
led to complaints as repair
centers struggle to keep
pace with sales.
Richardson had to wait
two-and-a-half months for
Continued on page 16
SPENDY SUSHI. A prospective buyer inspects the quality of fresh
tuna before the first auction of the year at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo on
January 5, 2015. A single bluefin tuna sold for 4.5 million yen ($37,500)
in annual celebratory bidding at the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s
famous fish market. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
4.5-million yen
tuna sold in Japan
TOKYO (AP) — A single bluefin tuna sold for 4.5
million yen ($37,500) in annual celebratory bidding at
the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s famous fish
market.
Kiyoshi Kimura, the owner of a Japanese sushi
restaurant chain, bought the 400-pound fish at the
re-opening of the Tsukiji market after the extended New
Year’s break.
He was the top bidder for the fourth year in a row.
Hundreds of tuna are sold daily at the early morning
auction.
The popularity of tuna for sushi and sashimi has
depleted stocks globally. In November, the International
Union for Conservation of Nature designated Pacific
bluefin as a species threatened by extinction.
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