The legal battle is protracted and full of uncertainties. While product and pricing wars may not be enough to crush opponents, control over the supply chain and market demarcation could be the real decisive factors behind the intense competition between Insta360 and DJI.

The competition between DJI and Insta360 has reached a "fierce battle" stage.

In June, Insta360 Luna Ultra and DJI Osmo Pocket 4 series were released one after another. In the same month, both sides were accused of "defrauding national subsidies" and "hunger marketing", respectively.

Accompanying the competition for new products are legal disputes. From the United States to China, DJI has initiated patent infringement lawsuits against Insta360, which has responded with counterclaims.

The two giants in their respective niche industries are engaged in intense battles.

The more lively the scene, the more it highlights the awkward (awkwardness) of GoPro, the former industry leader and once-promising star, now the third-ranked player.

On July 9, GoPro announced that its founder and CEO, Nicholas Woodman, would provide a total of $20 million in financing to the company, giving the struggling company a temporary reprieve.

But this is only temporary. Currently, GoPro's stock price has been below $1 for 26 consecutive trading days, putting it on the brink of delisting.

Part.

01

A Flash in the Pan

In 2002, after a failed entrepreneurial venture, Woodman embarked on a surfing and road trip in his old car.

Like many entrepreneurial stories, this journey led him to discover a business opportunity. He wanted to capture his best surfing moments but found that cameras on the market were either too expensive or too difficult to operate.

With a screwdriver and a sewing machine, Woodman created his own action camera, marking the beginning of GoPro.

Handcrafted prototypes, garage startups—these classic elements of American tech companies are all present in GoPro's story.

Woodman's message was simple and direct: "Strap the camera to yourself and forget about it."

In 2006, the flagship Hero series began to be released, and GoPro's story gradually gained traction within the extreme sports community.

At that time, Woodman's approach was very internet-savvy. He gave away cameras for free to surfers, skiers, skydivers, and motorcyclists. These individuals showcased first-person footage of extreme sports, acting as KOLs and accelerating GoPro's rise to prominence.

With the Hero 5 featuring a wide-angle lens and the Hero 9 introducing high-definition recording, GoPro began to soar. The company's revenue grew rapidly from $64 million in 2010 to $1.394 billion in 2014, with a compound annual growth rate of an astonishing 116.03%.

In 2014, GoPro went public with much fanfare, its stock price soaring to $93 at its peak, giving the company a market capitalization of $13 billion and making Woodman a billionaire overnight.

This was GoPro's peak, having almost single-handedly opened up a previously untapped market, tightly binding GoPro with extreme sports and becoming the absolute synonym. GoPro enjoyed ample benefits as a pioneer.

However, going public marked GoPro's peak and the starting point of its decline.

After reaching the summit, GoPro made a series of blunders.

Amid soaring stock prices, GoPro chose to aggressively stockpile inventory, reflecting Blind optimism (blind optimism) about the market. The action camera market was far from being mass-market or a necessity; many consumers only used them for one or two occasions before letting them gather dust.

GoPro's products were complex and cumbersome, leading many consumers to make one-time purchases. Growth quickly peaked.

In 2015, revenue reached $1.62 billion, but growth slowed to 16.19%, continuing to decline.

At this point, Woodman urgently needed a new narrative, and his strategy further pushed the company toward ruin.

Part.

02

A Series of Blunders

In 2015, GoPro heavily promoted the thumb-sized Hero4 Session camera, which was portable and Square -shaped (cube-shaped).

However, the problem lay in its price. Priced at $399, with a battery life of only 1.5-2 hours, no support for 4K high-definition video, and complex settings dependent on a smartphone, users generally found the pricing excessive.

Indeed, in September of that year, GoPro reduced the product's price by $100.

The price cut not only admitted to pricing errors but also exposed GoPro's inventory issues. Previous aggressive stockpiling and overloading distributors began to backfire.

In October 2016, GoPro's situation worsened with the release of the Karma drone. This was an ambitious move, attempting to upgrade action cameras from "wearable" to "flyable" and capture the aerial market.

At that time, DJI had already become the absolute leader in the drone industry through technological accumulation, and GoPro, like today's Insta360, was coming on strong.

However, to everyone's surprise, GoPro's technology was far from meeting requirements.

Just one month after its release, GoPro was forced to recall all approximately 2,500 units sold due to mechanical faults in the battery connection, causing drones to suddenly lose power and crash during flight.

The Karma survived in the market for less than 15 months and was officially discontinued and withdrawn in January 2018, with the entire drone division being laid off. The hundreds of millions of dollars invested by GoPro went down the drain.

While scene expansion proved ineffective, GoPro simultaneously pursued software Layout (strategic Layout ).

In 2015, GoPro acquired VR software company Kolor, which mainly operated Autopano stitching software and Panotour virtual tour software.

In 2016, GoPro acquired two mobile video editing apps, Replay and Splice, for a total of $105 million in cash and stock. These deals accounted for approximately 22% of GoPro's cash reserves.

Behind these acquisitions, GoPro attempted to build a content ecosystem and develop a subscription model to ultimately achieve sustainable revenue. However, the result was the wasteful consumption of precious cash flow. Kolor announced its closure in 2018.

Undeterred, GoPro acquired ReelSteady software company in 2020, but with little success.

Part.

03

Besieged on All Sides

Starting with drones, Chinese companies emerged in GoPro's narrative, marking the beginning of its nightmare.

DJI was the first opponent. As early as around 2014, DJI had established a monopolistic position in the drone market through its technology. When GoPro recklessly entered the drone market, DJI became an insurmountable wall.

In fact, GoPro never even pushed DJI to the point of patent litigation. Against the backdrop of DJI facing bans, tariff pressures, and other issues, data from The New York Times in June 2024 showed that 58% of U.S. drone operators used DJI equipment, far surpassing second-place Skydio's 12%.

After DJI, the emergence of Insta360 pushed GoPro over the edge.

Backed by the Chinese supply chain, Insta360 and DJI could launch new products with significantly improved performance almost every year, while GoPro, lacking these advantages, struggled to achieve effective product iteration.

In 2017, GoPro launched its panoramic camera, well ahead of Insta360. However, Insta360's panoramic cameras quickly iterated and expanded their product range, surpassing GoPro step by step.

From 1 to 10, Chinese manufacturers clearly demonstrated more innovation. Insta360's "invisible selfie stick" optimized shooting effects, while its AI auto-editing feature lowered the barrier to editing, becoming a productivity tool for many travel bloggers, vloggers, and lifestyle showcase bloggers.

GoPro had discovered the market but could only watch helplessly as Chinese companies took over.

In 2024, GoPro, at its wit's end, filed a Section 337 investigation application with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), accusing Insta360 of infringing on multiple patents related to image stabilization and core technologies. It aggressively demanded a complete ban on the import and sale of Insta360 products in the United States.

Obviously, this was a desperate struggle. In February of this year, a U.S. court ruled that all five core invention patents central to GoPro's lawsuit were invalid. GoPro's ban plan fell through completely.

The soaring price of memory became the final straw that broke the camel's back. GoPro's action cameras do not have built-in storage, requiring users to purchase microSD cards separately, further dampening consumer purchase Will (willingness).

In the first quarter of this year, an IDC report showed that in the global handheld smart camera market, DJI maintained its first place with a 65% market share in terms of shipments, growing 38% year-on-year. Insta360 ranked second with a 22% market share in terms of shipments, growing 66% year-on-year, the highest growth rate. GoPro's shipments shrank by 33% year-on-year, with a market share of only 6%.

Since 2016, GoPro has been on a downward trajectory, with revenue sliding to $650 million, a 60% decline from its peak. Its stock price has also shrunk by 99% from its peak.

In April of this year, GoPro announced a global layoff of approximately 145 employees, a 23% reduction, which has become a routine move.

In May, the company announced the launch of a "strategic review," meaning it was preparing to sell itself or seek a merger.

In June, regulatory filings stated that the company faced "significant doubts about its ability to continue as a going concern."

With both performance and stock price taking a hit, GoPro's fate seems sealed.

GoPro's meteoric rise and fall, besides its own strategic missteps, were influenced by inevitable factors. These are also key elements in the current competition between DJI and Insta360.

Part.

04

The Supply Chain Battle

Over the past year, the competition between DJI and Insta360 has escalated from products and pricing to supply chains and sales channels, culminating in current legal and public relations battles, with neither side giving an inch.

In terms of products, DJI released the Osmo 360, directly competing with Insta360 and entering its core market. Subsequently, Insta360 released the panoramic drone "Yingling Antigravity," directly challenging DJI. This year, Insta360's Luna Ultra gimbal camera, released in the United States, directly competes with DJI's flagship Osmo Pocket series.

In terms of pricing, during this year's 618 shopping festival, DJI reduced the prices of more than ten products; Insta360 quickly followed suit by announcing a spokesperson and matching price cuts.

The legal battle has now erupted in the two main markets of China and the United States.

The public relations war is quietly unfolding in the shadows.

After DJI released the Osmo Pocket 4 series, situations like immediate sellouts occurred across multiple channels, raising external suspicions of "hunger marketing." Similarly, Insta360 became embroiled in controversy over "defrauding national subsidies" with the Luna Ultra.

However, none of these competitive tactics can truly bring down the opponent. The supply chain is, in fact, one of the key decisive factors.

Reviewing GoPro's downfall, slow product iteration was a critical reason.

But this slow iteration was not just due to slow R&D; supply chain issues also played a role. When R&D capabilities could not find a sufficient supply chain system to land (implement), GoPro was constantly hindered.

A similar situation once occurred with Insta360. Liu Jingkang initially set up his office in Nanjing, where he attended university, but early-stage development was not smooth. It wasn't until 2015, when Liu and his team moved the company to Shenzhen, that Insta360 reached a turning point.

Shenzhen's unique supply chain advantages deeply benefited Insta360. "In Shenzhen, even PCB prototypes can be ordered in the morning and picked up in the afternoon." "Originally, thousands of raw materials needed to be sourced nationwide, but in Shenzhen, they can basically be found within a two-hour drive."

If such a significant difference exists between two cities, the gap between two countries in terms of supply chain infrastructure is even more pronounced.

Supply chain support helps DJI and Insta360 enhance their product capabilities and was key to their victory over GoPro.

This will also be one of the potential decisive factors in their ongoing competition.

In the face of price cuts, Liu Jingkang stated that price wars alone cannot achieve long-term monopoly or profitability.

In response to lawsuits, he said, "We fully understand the mindset of giants losing market share and are not afraid of any patent lawsuits."

However, when faced with supply chain exclusion, at the end of last year, Liu Jingkang wrote in an internal letter that 33 core suppliers for the Yingling A1 drone faced exclusivity pressures. He straightforward (bluntly stated) that the technical premiums on these core components made it difficult for Insta360 to participate in market competition through price cuts in the short term, trapping them in a vicious cycle of "difficult cost reduction, high pricing, and sales pressure."

He also admitted that 'DJI is much, much stronger than it appears.'

According to the disclosed information, suppliers are not allowed to provide components to DJI's competitors during the project cooperation cycle, nor can they be applied to all product lines of competitors, including action cameras, panoramic cameras, drones, and handheld gimbals. In other words, the influence DJI exerts on the supply chain can largely disrupt the rhythm of Insta360's entire product line.

From the results, the supply chain strategy did indeed delay the launch of the Shadow A1. In the global drone market, DJI accounts for over 70% of the consumer drone segment, while Insta360 has not yet made it onto the list.

In the panoramic camera sector, current reports show significant discrepancies in specific data, but they generally confirm that DJI has already entered the fray.

A previous report by Qianzhan Consulting stated that DJI's market share in the panoramic camera segment reached 43% in Q3 2025. Frost & Sullivan mentioned that DJI secured approximately 37.1% of the domestic market share in the same quarter.

The competition between the two sides continues, but from the current outcomes, the litigation is lengthy and uncertain, and product and price wars cannot defeat the opponent. The control of the supply chain and the division of territories may be the real decisive factors behind the heated battle between Insta360 and DJI.