DJI is rapidly expanding its agricultural-drone business by catering to young farmers in its home market of China, growing its cumulative sales 15-fold in five years to 300,000 units.
Drones flying over fields to spray pesticides are an increasingly common sight in rural China. These vehicles use aerial photos to set flight paths and can avoid obstacles automatically. The latest models are equipped with two sprayers that can apply 18 liters of chemicals per minute.
DJI drones are used to work about a third of Chinese farmland, mainly by large-scale farmers in their 30s and 40s. Demand is growing for the technology to alleviate a labor shortage as China’s population ages.
With price tags in the RMB 50,000 (USD 7,000) range, DJI drones are reportedly favored as a more cost-effective option than competing models.
China’s QY Research forecasts the global market for farming drones growing from about USD 3.1 billion in 2024 to USD 9 billion in 2030. DJI is currently in the lead with a roughly 30% share, with Yamaha Motor a distant second at 11%.
DJI began selling farming drones in 2015. In 2022, the business was the second largest contributor to its RMB 30 billion (USD 4.2 billion) in revenue, behind its mainstay consumer camera drones.
The company offers extensive customer support to build long-term relationships with young Chinese farmers. It has around 6,000 instructors, mainly in China, who teach staff at retailers to become certified trainers themselves, and operates 1,100 repair centers that it says can fix 95% of problems in six hours or faster.
Outside China, DJI logs substantial sales of agricultural drones in the Americas, where wheat and corn are major crops, and in Southeast Asia, mainly for rice. Australian farmers employ DJI drones for weed control in pastures, and Japan is a major market as well.
A rice farmer in western Japan’s Tottori Prefecture uses a DJI drone to sow seeds directly onto his 16 hectares of rice paddies as well as apply pesticide and fertilizer. “The work goes five times as fast as before,” he said.
He used to work in the fields with his father using equipment such as rice-planting machinery. The drone has “reduced the physical and mental burden,” he said.
Buying a JPY 1.8 million (USD 12,000) drone and a JPY 250,000 (USD 1,666.7) battery is cheaper than purchasing all of the equipment that would be needed otherwise, according to the farmer.
A new DJI model offers improved spraying on sloped surfaces, which the company hopes will see use for fruit and tea cultivation in Japan’s many mountainous regions.
In the US and Europe, DJI faces a less friendly environment. Washington has placed DJI on its Entity List blacklist of companies under trade restrictions.
The fiscal 2025 defense spending bill passed by the US House of Representatives in June included tighter restrictions on DJI drones. The version being considered by the Senate reportedly removed these provisions amid objections from users, but the trend toward tougher regulation looks likely to continue.
As the performance of civilian drones improves, worries are growing that they could be diverted for military use. DJI has avoided sending farming drones to historically conflict-prone central Africa.
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.