DJI and Insta360 escalate rivalry with 6 patent lawsuits

Drone market leader DJI has filed six patent lawsuits against panoramic camera maker Insta360, escalating a rivalry that now spans competing products, aggressive price wars, and pressure on more than 30 shared supply chain partners. The move takes a long-simmering conflict into a new, more aggressive phase.

"If DJI wants this feature, I can give it to you," Insta360 founder Liu Jingkang said on social media, referring to a disputed drone flight technology. The comment highlights the increasingly personal and public nature of the conflict between the two Shenzhen-based technology giants.

The lawsuits, filed in a Shenzhen court on March 23, 2026, focus on drone flight control, structural design, and image processing patents that DJI claims are its intellectual property. The legal battle follows both companies launching products in each other's core markets, with DJI's new Osmo 360 camera undercutting Insta360's flagship X5 price by nearly 300 yuan upon release.

This fight is for control of the entire consumer imaging market, threatening profit margins for both firms and creating significant legal and operational risk for the publicly-traded Insta360. The conflict's outcome could redefine leadership in a market moving beyond traditional cameras.

A War on All Fronts

The patent lawsuit is only the most visible front in a war being fought from retail shelves to the factory floor. In the summer of 2025, Insta360 announced its entry into the consumer drone market, a direct challenge to DJI's primary business. Just one week later, DJI launched its first-ever panoramic camera, the Osmo 360, priced aggressively to challenge Insta360's core product line. Insta360's CEO immediately responded by cutting the price of his company's competing X5 camera by 500 yuan.

The conflict extends deep into the supply chain. In a lengthy internal letter, Liu claimed that in the six months leading up to his company's drone launch, 33 of its core suppliers faced pressure to sign exclusive agreements with DJI. These included 7 optics module firms, 8 structural component makers, and 8 chip suppliers. This "supply chain isolation" tactic aims to cripple a competitor's ability to manufacture products, a common strategy in China's hyper-competitive hardware sector.

DJI has also initiated an uncharacteristically aggressive price war. In late 2025, it slashed prices on its popular handheld cameras, with the Pocket 3 seeing a 900 yuan reduction and the Action 4 sports camera dropping by 1,129 yuan. These moves are widely seen as a direct effort to squeeze Insta360's profitability and market share in the ground imaging sector, which has been Insta360's stronghold. While Insta360's revenue grew an impressive 76.85% in 2025, its net profit fell by 3.08%, suggesting the price war is already compressing margins.

The Strategic Stakes

For Insta360, the expansion into drones is a necessary gamble to break free from its niche. Despite dominating the panoramic camera market, the company's brand recognition is dwarfed by DJI. By challenging the perception that "DJI equals drone," Insta360 hopes to position itself as an equivalent top-tier imaging brand in the consumer's mind. The company has confirmed it is developing a main-brand drone, indicating its initial third-party product was just the first step.

For DJI, the threat is existential. Unlike past challengers who were poorly funded or lacked manufacturing expertise, Insta360 is a profitable, publicly-traded company with a proven track record of hardware innovation and a strong user base. Insta360's entry into drones threatens not just a single product category, but DJI's entire brand identity and market position. According to a source close to DJI, the turning point internally was the moment Liu announced his drone ambitions, triggering a comprehensive counter-attack across products, pricing, channels, and the legal system.

This high-stakes competition between two of China's most successful hardware companies, much like the historic rivalry between Canon and Nikon in Japan, is likely to accelerate the pace of innovation for consumers. However, it also introduces significant instability for investors, particularly for Insta360, which now faces a multi-front war against a larger, more entrenched competitor.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.