Chinese drone-marker DJI has found itself a target for consumer backlash after reports alleging that their newest $1699 UAV may have missed its shipping date.
Originally due to launch October 15th, the Mavic Pro was pushed back due to strong global demand to the 21st.
However, Gizmodo has since published an email sent from DJI to distributors last week that casts the delay in a less-favorable light and suggests production of the new drone is even further behind schedule.
According to the email, “the truth is, that is only a very small quantity of it released to comfort the market.”
“Please try your best to convince your customers to stick with you, don’t cancel their preorders,” it read.
The email indicated that the Mavic would be shipping from the October 25th at the earliest.
These statements gel with the reality faced by many irate DJI customers, have taken to communally tracking the progress of their Mavic orders via Google Spreadsheet.
Their efforts found that only 25 of 525 had received their orders since the passing of the original shipping date.
DJI went on to release a press release on the 25th confirming that “Mavic Pro Fly More Combos are now shipping. Please check your order status online for updates.”
DJI also reached out to Channelnews and advised that “we are doing all we can (at the factory and logistic level) to satisfy pre-orders not just with our dealer partners, but our global distribution channel which include multiple touch points such as our online store and flagship stores.”
The company says the production on the Mavic has ramped up and that they are now shipping thousands across their distribution network.
DJI says they “acknowledge that the shipping delay has raised some concerns and we’ve been very open and communicative with our customers be it in our newsroom, customer eDM and through their DJI online store account in the past two weeks” and assert that “since we found out about the shipping delay, we’ve kept our customers in the loop and provided updates along the way.”
