is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
Is DJI exiting the US drone market? The company says no — but it would not explain to The Verge what has changed such that it can’t even keep a single drone on shelves.
When I walked into my local Best Buy store today, June 24th, there were zero DJI drones available to purchase. There wasn’t even an empty spot for each drone to go. The entire DJI aisle had been swept clean of price tags, lockers, and products — save a handful of motorized gimbals, action cameras, a single lone RC controller, and an almost empty premium endcap spot where a flagship drone would normally go.
Here is the DJI section at my local Best Buy. Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
So long, “immersive flight experience.” Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
“We’re not really carrying DJI drones anymore because of the US-China thing,” a store employee told me.
Best Buy is not alone. DJI’s own US webstore no longer has any drones in stock, as DroneDJ reported Monday. Despite DJI having an official presence on Amazon, all remaining drones there are sold by third parties with low or unknown quantities of stock. Nor will Best Buy’s website be much more help than its physical store: As of Tuesday, its only remaining DJI drones are the last-gen Mavic 3 Pro, priced at $3,890, a refurbished version of that same Mavic 3 Pro, and a refurbished version of the 2022 DJI Avata. DJI has already released successors for both.
Even Adorama and B&H, the specialty camera stores, appear to be running low on late-model DJI drones. As of Tuesday, most current-gen drones were listed as “temporarily on backorder” or “temporarily out of stock,” save this specific model of the DJI Air 3S, these two specific models of the DJI Flip, and some variants of the budget DJI Neo.
What’s going on? DJI spokesperson Daisy Kong shared the same explanation DJI’s been sharing for the past eight months, accusing US Customs of unfairly scrutinizing its drone imports. Here’s the latest version:
DJI remains committed to the US market. As we’ve previously shared, DJI has been working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to resolve a custom-related misunderstanding. Unfortunately, this has impacted our ability to stock and import drones and parts. We understand the frustration among our customers, but remain hopeful that this will be resolved.
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