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Iris Deng

Coco Feng

In the southern tech hub of Shenzhen, a simmering rivalry between DJI and Insta360 has transformed their shared neighbourhood into a high-stakes corporate battleground.
Both companies have long been hailed as the city’s poster children for Chinese innovation. DJI dominated the skies as the world’s undisputed leader in consumer drones, and Insta360 captured the niche market of panoramic cameras.
Now they find themselves locked in a crosstown struggle for market supremacy that some say could reshape the global hardware landscape.
The first turf incursion came from Insta360 in July, when it announced a full-degree drone under an independent brand, Antigravity. DJI swiftly stormed back with its own panoramic video camera, directly challenging Insta360’s core market.
What began as a skirmish has since escalated into a war spanning product lines, pricing strategies, talent acquisition and intellectual property litigation. The friction is also serving as a prime example of how fierce competition can fortify a nation’s hardware ecosystem.


“Overall, the benefits [of the crosstown rivalry] far outweigh the drawbacks,” said Luo Jun, director of the Future Low-Altitude Economy Innovation Centre.
“It’s a textbook case of high-level competition that drives the industry forward and forces DJI and Insta360 to sharpen their competitive edge.”
But while the southern city, long known as China’s Silicon Valley, is the battlefield for the two companies, analysts say the fallout of this crosstown clash is reverberating globally.
Some see DJI and Insta360 as not just eating each other’s lunch but reshaping the world’s action camera, 360-degree imaging and drone markets by pushing the limits of their boundaries, while Washington’s regulations create uncertainty across the playing field.
The competition has put greater pressure on US competitors. GoPro, which once defined the action-camera category, has seen market share evaporate. Earlier this month, the company announced a lay-off involving 23 per cent of its workforce, or around 145 employees, by the end of 2026, to curb operating costs.
The rivalry between DJI and Insta360 also showcases how China’s “engineer dividend” pushes Chinese consumer products to the forefront of the world stage, said Aaron He, deputy director of the research institute of China Galaxy Securities.
Washington’s new net: can DJI and Insta360 outfly a US ban?
Insta360, founded in 2015, quickly emerged as a formidable rival to GoPro in the early years by specialising in 360-degree capabilities before expanding to action cameras, thumb-sized cams and handheld gimbals.
Its entry in the drone realm came shortly after its initial public offering last year, as the company sought growth beyond its core camera business.
As the A1 drone hit shelves in December, the first 48 hours generated more than 30 million yuan (US$4.4 million) in China sales, and total global shipments in the first month surpassed 30,000 units, according to Antigravity, which was incubated by Insta360 in collaboration with third parties.
To date, its global revenue is in the tens of millions of dollars, with particularly strong momentum in North America, according to an emailed statement from an Antigravity representative.
While Antigravity’s first drone attempt captured market attention, analysts said it still faced an uphill climb to shake up DJI’s dominant 70 per cent share of the global civilian drone market.

In the panoramic-camera category, DJI’s Osmo 360 quickly grabbed a 35 per cent market share in the fourth quarter of last year, according to data from research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), while Insta360 still dominated the niche category in 2025 with a 65 per cent market share.
“Whether it’s Insta360’s first-gen panoramic drone or DJI’s panoramic camera, there is still significant room for technical improvement,” China Galaxy Securities’ He said.
“As they venture into each other’s core territories, both are currently playing the role of the ‘challenger’. Success ultimately depends on product strengths.”
However, He noted that they’re competing in a growth-oriented market rather than a “zero-sum game”. “Rapid iterations stimulate new consumer demand, and fierce competition drives prices down, which in turn further expands the market capacity,” He said.
Meanwhile, aggressive new moves could hit regulatory roadblocks in the United States – one of the largest markets for consumer drones and smart imaging devices.
In December, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) created a de facto ban on all foreign-made drones and components on a “covered list”, citing national security risks, which bans the sales of new models of DJI in the country. In February, DJI sued the FCC.

Insta360’s Antigravity managed to receive FCC certification for the A1 in November and went on sale before the ban on all foreign drones. However, its future models could fall under the FCC’s restrictions.
An Insta360 representative said the company ensures global regulatory compliance by monitoring and adapting to policy changes.
“The US has always been one of the biggest markets for Insta360. We are closely monitoring the situation as it evolves,” the representative said in a statement on Wednesday.
DJI’s latest vlogging camera, the Osmo Pocket 4, launched globally last week. But it has yet to officially go on sale in the US, as the market closely monitors the implications of DJI’s “covered list” status, which prohibits authorisation for communications equipment deemed as a risk.
The US may have banned DJI late last year, but China has no shortage of drone makers, said Peng Peng, president of Guangzhou Association for Doctoral Innovation and Scientific Research.
“Much like the US restrictions on Chinese electric vehicles, those companies are thriving by pivoting to non-US markets and finding ways to navigate those controls,” said Peng, who is also executive chairman of the Guangdong Society of Reform think tank.
Luo of the Future Low-Altitude Economy Innovation Centre called the FCC’s ban on DJI “ineffective”.
“Chinese consumer-drone technology is highly mature and cost-efficient, with top-tier performance in areas like flight control,” Luo said. “US drone makers just don’t have a competitive edge.
“Also, many users in the US are heavily dependent on DJI.”
360-degree drones are an entirely new category that can go beyond what traditional cameras and drones are capable of
Liu Jingkang, Insta360 founder
‘Red Boy’ and the drone king
Some analysts argue that this battle could turn into a fierce market-share grab via price war, as the two companies’ core markets are expected to hit a ceiling.
Insta360’s entry into the drone market caters to a segment of DJI’s potential “casual fliers” by focusing on the niche demand for panoramic imagery, in the hope of bringing in incremental growth within a specialised creator base, said Zhang Yi, chief executive of research firm iiMedia.
To distinguish from DJI’s traditional flagship-drone offerings, Insta360 bundles the Antigravity A1 with a pair of goggles and a hand controller for a drone’s-eye view as a standard experience.
However, niche demand has yet to significantly move the needle for Insta360, as DJI still maintains absolute dominance in terms of market share, revenue, technological barriers and brand perception, Zhang said.
“The broader goal remains how to change the competitive landscape and expand market capacity through innovation,” Zhang said, adding that leveraging a strong patent portfolio and post-IPO financing will be crucial for Insta360 to carve out a sustainable path in a space currently controlled by DJI.
Liu Jingkang, founder and chairman of Insta360, which made its trading debut on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style Star Market in June, was certain that the drone market had room for new players.
“The drone market has a higher growth ceiling,” he told investors in November. “And 360-degree drones are an entirely new category that can go beyond what traditional cameras and drones are capable of.”
China had 3.3 million drones registered last year – a year-on-year increase of 51 per cent, according to official data by the country’s civil aviation authority.
“In terms of market positioning, Antigravity is focused on defining a new category within the drone space rather than competing directly on traditional specs or existing benchmarks,” the Antigravity representative said.


Insta360’s business has predominantly come from overseas markets, which accounted for 76 per cent of its overseas sales in 2024. The company is scheduled to report its 2025 earnings on Wednesday.
The rivalry has already turned litigious.
Insta360’s aggressive move into drones was met with a lawsuit from DJI for alleged patent infringement in drone technologies in Shenzhen in March, days before launching its first 360-degree drone.
A ruling against Insta360 could threaten sales in both domestic and overseas markets, according to Shanghai-based intellectual property lawyer You Yunting.
GoPro and Insta360 are also engaged in legal disputes, and a US trade panel ruled in February that the Chinese manufacturer infringed on the US firm’s design, but the ruling does not affect Insta360’s current offerings or its presence in the US.
In an interview with Chinese media outlet LatePost, DJI founder Wang Tao tried to turn the narrative of the crosstown war into one involving a fair race.
“Competition is not a life-and-death struggle, but a race of catching up. If you’re always thinking about sabotaging your opponent, you won’t be able to run fast yourself,” Wang said, according to the interview published earlier this month.
Wang described Insta360’s Liu as “very young and energetic”.
“He reminds me of ‘Red Boy’,” Wang said, referring to the fire-breathing child who was one of the few true challengers of the Monkey King in the Chinese classical novel Journey to the West.
DJI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
The next battle: Pocket vs Luna vlogging
On April 16, DJI launched its long-awaited handheld vlogging camera, the Osmo Pocket 4 – a major upgrade two and a half years after its immensely popular Pocket 3. At the launch, DJI also teased the release of Osmo Pocket 4P with a dual-camera system this year.
DJI’s accelerated releases came as Insta360 gears up to launch its own handheld gimbal camera, Luna, slated for release in the first half of 2026. Last week, Insta360 teased that its Luna series was developed in collaboration with high-end camera maker Leica, including a dual-lens model.
In Zhang’s view, the smart-imaging market has “entered a classic zero-sum game stage”, with the growth rate having slowed in recent years.
“The essence of the confrontation between Insta360 and DJI is a battle for the existing market,” Zhang said.
DJI currently dominates the global handheld smart camera market, which includes action cameras, 360-degree cameras and gimbal cameras, according to an IDC report in March.
DJI led the market with a 62 per cent share, as it shipped 10.4 million units in 2025, jumping 161 per cent, year on year.
Insta360 trailed with a 20 per cent share, as its shipments grew 87 per cent to reach 3.4 million units, while GoPro saw its shipments slump 26 per cent in 2025 to 1.8 million, holding only 11 per cent of the market.
Driven by demand for social media content creation in China and globally, the handheld-camera market expanded by 83 per cent to 46.1 billion yuan in 2025, with 16.7 million units shipped, according to data from IDC, which forecasts annual volume could surpass 40 million units by 2030.
While the DJI and Insta360 rivalry has resulted in overlapping product lines and complex litigation, analysts say the resulting price adjustments and innovative upgrades have broadened the reach of these technologies to a wider consumer base. And for now, the industry ceiling remains high.
“They are trying to carve out slices of each other’s cakes, but I believe the two of them will actually make the ‘cake’ larger,” said Ding Daoshi, an independent internet and technology analyst.
“Despite their intense wars of words and even legal battles, they can still expand the market for both drones and handheld cameras alike as long as the industry allows full market competition.”


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Western competitors like GoPro face shrinking footprints as strategic shifts of Chinese firms disrupt the status quo while navigating FCC-led national security bans


Western competitors like GoPro face shrinking footprints as strategic shifts of Chinese firms disrupt the status quo while navigating FCC-led national security bans.


As DJI duels Insta360, China sharpens global hardware edge amid US scrutiny

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Western competitors like GoPro face shrinking footprints as strategic shifts of Chinese firms disrupt the status quo while navigating FCC-led national security bans

Western competitors like GoPro face shrinking footprints as strategic shifts of Chinese firms disrupt the status quo while navigating FCC-led national security bans