Behind the Figma sanctions incident: Why "DJI"?

Author | A thousand mountains

Review | Mochi

Event review

Over the weekend, a piece of news quickly spread throughout Chinese design circles: Figma, an American design software company, suspended DJI's corporate accounts because DJI was on the U.S. sanctions list, and Figma could not provide software services to companies on the sanctions list.

As far as the event itself is concerned, the impact is not significant. Because Figma is only a UI design tool after all, not a 3D software related to industrial design, there are many similar software at home and abroad, and the replacement cost is not high. Moreover, after the incident, many domestic software companies reacted quickly, and launched functions such as Figma file import for the first time, which helped the sanctioned enterprises reduce the degree of impact.

In the subsequent fermentation process of the incident, there are two points that have aroused widespread discussion: First, is the Figma deactivation just the beginning? If more commonly used software suspends providing services to Chinese companies due to this "force majeure", how should enterprises respond; second, is this a wave of "giving heads" to domestic software? How local software companies can seize the opportunity brought about by the "ban" of foreign software.

In fact, behind this incident, there is another point worth exploring: why the "again" sanctioned is DJI. In recent years, the outbreak of the Huawei chip incident and the MATLAB incident has gradually given the public a real sense of the US sanctions list, and DJI is also a regular in the "blacklist". In the "turn of the game", DJI seems to frequently "hit the move". If you look closely at the causes, you will find that this is a story that "sees that you are not pleasing to the eye and cannot kill you".

Over the years, DJI has been "sanctioned"

Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Shenzhen, DJI is one of the few private tech giants in China with its own core technology.

According to the data of the Prospective Industry Research Institute in 2020, DJI UAVs have accounted for 80% of the market share in the global drone market, which can be said to be the absolute king in the field of consumer drones. In the Global Unicorn 500 Development Report (2021), DJI Drone ranked 28th among the world's unicorns with a valuation of $23.714 billion.

Looking at the data alone, the princes may not have a very real feeling for DJI's "King" position. Here's a story: Around 2013, DJI competed fiercely with 3D Robotics, an American drone company. The end result was that DJI quickly killed 3D Robotics, which was even forced to quit the drone manufacturing industry. This is the first time that domestic high-tech enterprises have achieved monopoly in the US domestic market.

The United States is naturally well aware of this threat. In May 2017, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory issued a secret report titled "DJI's Technological Threats and Weaknesses in The Use of Drones," and in the same month, the U.S. Navy also released a memorandum titled "Operational Risks of Using the DJI Series."

At one point, the United States banned DJI on the grounds of cybersecurity risks – requiring a ban on the use of DJI drones within the scope of the US military and the unloading of all DJI products. But then the ban was lifted during the trade war, the specific reason is unknown, but the author guesses that it is nothing more than DJI drones are too easy to use, and even can not find the ideal alternative.

In December 2020, DJI was added to the Entity List by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It is reported that if a company is included in such a control list, it must obtain the approval of U.S. commerce in order to obtain the products and technical services of U.S. companies. DJI was included in the Commerce Department's entity list this time, allegedly because it was linked to so-called "massive human rights violations" that received widespread attention, specifically possibly involving so-called "high-tech surveillance."

In the face of unreasonable U.S. sanctions, DJI responded at the time that DJI was disappointed with the decision of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and U.S. customers could continue to purchase and use DJI's products normally. However, in the face of the tariffs imposed, DJI's backhand directly increased prices in the United States by 13%, making American consumers pay.

Why DJI is "tough"

For the Chinese, DJI is a full of confidence in the technology company, when facing the United States, vividly interpret what is called "I just like you can't get used to me and can't kill me." The reason why DJI can be so "tough" can be attributed to three points: easy to use, excellent cost performance, and patent barriers.

Easy to use: How easy to use? A company with civil aerial photography technology as its original intention, but let the product show the surprising power of victory on the battlefield.

The first thing that needs to be explained is that no matter which country, they buy civilian drones produced by DJI, proper consumer-grade professional equipment, but people's creativity is always boundless.

In the Middle East battlefield, where high-tech weapons are scarce, the large-scale use of civilian drones to participate in the war has become a trend. The UAV is easy to carry, small in size, controllable in speed, hoverable, and has a unique advantage in battlefield reconnaissance. Another example is the combination of a badminton ball and a common grenade on a drone to make a flying bomb. The power is not to be underestimated. An unmanned aircraft can reconnoiter, can drop bombs, and the cost is cheap, it is not a pity to bomb, of course, it is widely popular.

Excellent price/performance ratio: The flight controller is regarded as the core of the drone, and it is also the most technical part, and its programs and algorithms are regarded as top secret. In terms of flight control, DJI is highly integrated compared with other UAV manufacturers. In addition to the flight control, its gimbal stabilization system is also a must, which ensures the superiority of its performance to the greatest extent. In terms of price, the control of its cost is also a ride. Take DJI's high-end "Yu" series of drones as an example, the price is about 1000-1500 US dollars, and under the same technical parameters, the quotation of the American counterpart will be 10 to 20 times higher.

Number of patents: DJI has built a huge patent barrier. It is reported that from 2008 to 2017, DJI has applied for more than 4,000 UAV-related patents, including 916 public patents, 3,206 national patents, 49 software copyrights and 46 works. Such a huge patent system has brought DJI terrible control over the industry. To put it simply, any company in the same industry that wants to do drones will have a hard time circumventing DJI's patents.

At the same time, DJI has achieved an ecological closed loop with the help of a perfect domestic supply industry chain. When an enterprise can achieve self-production of parts, system self-production, patent self-research, appearance of their own design, and even standard self-reliance, then the technical sanctions from the outside world, no matter how harsh, will appear pale and powerless.

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