DJI Responds to Reuters Story: “Business is Thriving.”

A recent news article by Reuters indicated that drone giant DJI was slashing its workforce and realigning operations back to it’s Chinese office.  It’s the latest in a series of rumors about the company, seemingly a victim of the U.S. and China trade war and concerns over infrastructure technology.  Here, DJI responds to Reuters story  – saying that the article created some inaccurate impressions and reassuring users that business is thriving.

DJI Responds to Reuters Story

The following is a release from DJI, republished without editing.

A story from the Reuters news agency has created some inaccurate impressions of how DJI has faced this year’s challenging business environment. It includes false claims about staffing changes and employee assignments in several departments. In truth, DJI has made some important structural changes and our business is thriving, as both personal and professional customers around the world are embracing drones in an era of social distancing.

DJI has grown rapidly since our founding as a parts supplier for remote-controlled aircraft hobbyists in 2006. Today we employ 14,000 people around the world with full product lines in consumer, enterprise and agricultural drones, as well as handheld products, educational robots and other advanced technology.

Our structure grew organically, and in 2019, we realized it had become unwieldy and inefficient. We understood we had to implement a more strategic approach to reset our expectations, reorganize ourselves and make sure we matched required tasks and demand from the market with the skill sets of our workforce. We looked closely at how to make our operations more efficient and effective while sharpening our focus on innovation.

When the pandemic struck our operations at the start of 2020, we put this strategy into effect and made difficult decisions to realign talent so we could continue to achieve our business goals during challenging times. We also reorganized our distribution network so we could add new partners who can help us reach new customers, ensuring the entire market continues to grow.

Reforming procedures, rethinking our teams and rebuilding our operations took a toll on our people, but set us on a successful path forward. While the pandemic took a huge hit on businesses and economies around the globe, DJI was able to manage the changes and become a resource for people, businesses and governments to respond to the pandemic. Drones were used to ensure people follow public health directives, deliver medical supplies while avoiding close contact, plan temporary hospitals and testing sites, and perform critical work remotely.

At the same time, as the world has been forced to isolate and distance itself, we have seen people embrace the creative and world-opening possibilities of all our products – not just our drones, but our handheld systems that turn everyone into a creator. The highly anticipated Mavic Air 2 drone has also been an enormous success since it launched this April.

As a matter of policy, DJI does not discuss its financial performance or personnel decisions, so we are unable to respond to some details in the story. DJI continues to hire for new positions and remains a highly regarded employer for the dynamic talent pool in Shenzhen, China. DJI has always moved colleagues from China to other countries and vice versa in order to strengthen our global knowledge, improve collaboration and help our employees achieve their full potential. This means we have German, French, American and other non-Chinese colleagues leading teams at our headquarters, as well as Chinese colleagues working in our regional offices around the world.

Our efforts to streamline and realign operations this year have not been easy, but they have positioned DJI to stay focused on our core strength of technical innovation. As the global leader in drone technology, we remain committed to developing new and powerful tools for the world.