Enterprise Drone Shortage - War in Ukraine

[Todd Hallbauer]

I've been looking to buy a Mavic 2 Enterprise drone with thermal capability, either a Dual or Advanced. The Advanced seems to be in short supply and has to be backordered even on DJI's website. New units on Amazon are listed at $10,000. Even used Dual units are selling on eBay for more than the price when it was new. I know manufacturing of the Advanced is probably slowing down because of the chip shortage and the impending release of a Mavic 3 Enterprise model, but I was thinking that there might also be unusually high demand right now due to the war in Ukraine. It's been reported that there are lots of DJI drones being used on the battlefield and in May I sold my Mavic 3 to a Lithuanian woman who I'm sure donated it to the war effort. I can see how a thermal capable aircraft would be much more valuable at locating targets than a standard camera drone even though the cost is significantly more. I was just wondering if anyone else had any thoughts or insights into how the war is affecting the enterprise and consumer drone market.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Honestly it was already in very short supply, I waited near 6 months for some parts,

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 2 in the Rain.

 

[Pallidin]

I don't think DJI is stressing-out over this at all.
Seems China is laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[GFields]

now due to the war in Ukraine

There is no information to suggest that.

 

[ComandorUA]

There is no information to suggest that.

At least partly it is true. Our volunteers and commercial companies are buying DJI and Autel drones in all countries of Europe and in US and Canada. Several hundreds (this is only shown on social media volunteers reports) of Mavic 3, Air2s and EVO2Pro go to front line every week starting from March 2022. Sometimes this lead to temporary shortages of stock in some countries like Poland or other our neighbors.

 

[ComandorUA]

I can't confirm anything about situation in US, but as i told, it is true in Poland. Temporary stock shortages and answers from sellers like "we have nothing to sell you, other Ukrainians already bought everything from us. Maybe next week.". This was often situation in May-June.

 

[IronSky1]

I sold mine for more then list (I can wait for another solution escpcially with new FLIR cameras) I also sold my H920 TOrnado to Ukarine effort.

 

[Volatus Drones]

At the start of the war, all drone inventory was sent over to aid the Ukrainians. We can see the stock levels of our distributors. Within three weeks of the war, everything was gone. Autel, DJI, everything.

I think the M2EA is a separate issue. We've heard that DJI was having factory and supply issues with the M2EA. This makes sense with the ramp-up to produce and release the Mini 3 and Mavic 3 backorders. There are only so many factories they can work with.

That being said, the M2EA is back. We will have more stock mid-week.

 

[Grandpa]

Happy to see this thread is up again.