Woofun AI reports that the DJI Osmo Pocket 4P, priced at 3,799 yuan, was officially released on June 23, resulting in immediate stock depletion across multiple sales channels. Secondary market platforms have already seen the resale price of this unit surge by more than 4,000 yuan above the official retail price. This scarcity has sparked frantic demand among consumers, with social media users reporting that inventory vanished within 0 seconds of the launch window opening. The intensity of the shortage extends beyond digital storefronts to physical retail locations, where customers arriving after work hours found shelves empty. A staff member from an authorized DJI experience store in Beijing confirmed to Caijing World that production capacity for the Pocket 4P remains extremely limited, with current pre-orders not expected to be delivered until August or September.

The inability to secure a DJI unit has driven frustrated consumers toward the competing Yeelight Luna Ultra, yet this alternative faces identical supply chain bottlenecks. Stock for the Luna Ultra sold out within 5 minutes of its release, leaving many potential buyers without options. Sales personnel within Yeelight channels indicated that not all blind pre-order orders have been fulfilled, and new purchase requests still require reservations while the supply process continues. Despite these hurdles, a photography enthusiast named A Zhe in Hangzhou successfully acquired a Luna Ultra unit. He highlighted the detachable screen as the primary attraction, noting that once removed, the device functions as a standalone monitor or remote control, effectively acting as an extra crew member during filming. For A Zhe, the value proposition lies less in raw technical specifications and more in the operational freedom the Luna Ultra provides for single-person shooting scenarios.

Initial market feedback suggests that DJI retains a significant advantage through its early-mover status and established brand reputation, with Pocket 4P pre-order volumes currently exceeding those of the Luna Ultra.

However, Yeelight presents a formidable challenge by having clearly identified its target audience with specific product features. The strategic divergence between the two entities is evident: Yeelight aims to capture a share of this market segment, whereas DJI is determined to defend its long-established market position. This confrontation was seeded as early as April of this year when DJI announced the standard version of the Pocket 4 and previewed the premium Pocket 4P on April 16. Just one week later, the Yeelight Luna series made its global debut at the NAB Show, with an initial plan to release the products in May. As May progressed, public debate between the companies intensified, culminating in DJI bringing the unreleased Pocket 4P to the Cannes Film Festival on May 14 for a special event with filmmakers worldwide. Four days later, Yeelight appointed Li Xian as its global brand ambassador and launched the blind pre-order program for the Luna Ultra.

An unexpected disruption altered Yeelight's timeline at the end of May when founder Liu Jingkang publicly apologized on social media and announced a postponement of the entire Luna series until June. Liu Jingkang explained that during his travel filming, he realized he was constantly staring at the screen to avoid going out of frame, which prevented him from truly enjoying the moment. Consequently, the team decided to add a new follow-up kit to further improve the filming experience. Around the time of this postponement, the still-on-sale Pocket 3 experienced a significant price cut, a move by DJI to retain existing users while waiting for its competitor's next move. On June 10, Yeelight took the lead by launching the Luna Ultra, featuring a detachable image transmission and remote control screen—a 2-inch OLED touch screen that functions as a wireless monitor or remote control once removed. In terms of imaging specifications, the Luna Ultra is equipped with an 8K Leica dual-camera system. Five days later, DJI announced the pre-sale of the Pocket 4P, which also features a dual-main-camera system and supports 17-stop dynamic range and 4K 240fps slow motion. Its price is 200 yuan lower than that of the Yeelight Luna Ultra.

Comparing the two products reveals distinct strategic focuses: the Luna Ultra emphasizes 'creative freedom' by providing a detachable screen and a follow-up module to lower barriers for single-person shooting, while the Pocket 4P emphasizes 'professional reliability' by offering a stable and predictable creative experience. Regarding performance improvements, an internal DJI source told Caijing World that reusing components from the previous generation is a cautious approach, but DJI's internal mechanisms constantly break away from traditional patterns to deliver a generational leap. Raising the main camera's dynamic range to 17 stops serves as a clear example of this philosophy.

However, on the very first day of the Yeelight new product's release, DJI launched a series of counterattacks. After filing a lawsuit against Yeelight regarding drone patent rights in March, DJI filed another lawsuit on June 10 in the Eastern District Court of Texas, accusing the Yeelight Luna Ultra of infringing on six of its patents. In this filing, DJI used strong language, claiming that Yeelight's related products violated its design patents and requesting a permanent ban and triple damages. Forty-eight hours later, Yeelight filed a counterclaim, accusing DJI of infringing on five of its patents.

These patent lawsuits represent a direct confrontation, yet they are the result of more than a year of escalating competition between the two companies. The battle in the gimbal camera sector is not an accidental encounter but another escalation in their cross-border competition. Since Yeelight announced its entry into the drone market in July 2025, disputes have expanded from products to supply chains, channels, and patent litigation. For years, although both operated in imaging hardware, their core areas differed: Yeelight started with panoramic cameras, while DJI specialized in drones and handheld imaging devices. As two well-known 'imaging giants' in Shenzhen, they maintained a tacit understanding for many years. Both headquarters are located in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, less than ten kilometers apart, with a drive time of about 20 minutes from DJI's Sky City to Yeelight's headquarters in the Software Industry Base assuming no traffic. The intelligent hardware community in Nanshan District is relatively small, and many employees from both companies know each other, with some having worked for both firms.

However, the situation began to change in 2025 when Yeelight successfully went public, making Liu Jingkang one of the youngest founders in the history of the STAR Market.

Subsequently, Yeelight began to expand its business scope, increasing its overlap with DJI. In July 2025, Yeelight announced the launch of its drone brand, Yingling A1, officially entering a field where DJI held a dominant position. Just three days later, DJI released its first panoramic camera, the Osmo 360, targeting Yeelight's core product category. From that point on, both companies began to encroach upon each other's territories. In response to Yeelight's challenges, DJI started to consolidate its market position by reducing prices, while Yeelight described the competition as extending to the supply chain level. Liu Jingkang revealed in an internal letter that in the six months before the launch of the Yingling A1, more than 30 core suppliers suddenly faced 'exclusive pressure' from industry giants, forcing Yeelight to rebuild an independent and controllable supply chain network from scratch. Beyond the panoramic camera and drone markets, the recently heating up competition in the gimbal camera sector has turned this battle into a full-scale contest. Public data shows that the Pocket 3 alone has generated more than 20 billion yuan in revenue for DJI. In the entire handheld smart camera market, DJI ranks first with a 62% market share in shipments, holding a clear advantage in handheld imaging devices.

For Yeelight, continuing to focus solely on the panoramic camera category is insufficient to support further growth, necessitating a break into DJI's existing market territory. Facing DJI's early-mover advantage, Yeelight is accelerating efforts to catch up. At the beginning of 2025, Yeelight had only 36 stores nationwide, but by the end of the year, this number increased to nearly 300. Data shows that Yeelight invested 1.53 billion yuan in research and development in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 97%, exceeding the total amount invested in the previous three years.

However, Yeelight's net profit attributable to the parent company in 2025 was 929 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.62%. On the DJI side, although its position remains solid, it has begun to differentiate products and adopt a strategy of 'trade profits for market share'. Previously, from the Pocket 1 in 2018 to the Pocket 2 in 2020, and then to the Pocket 3 in 2023, DJI released only three products over a long period, with each generation having basically only one main model. This time, DJI introduced a standard version and a Pro version within the same generation for the first time, launching the Pocket 4 in April and the Pocket 4P two months later.

The most direct manifestation of this change was in pricing. The standard version of the newly released Pocket 4P is priced at 2,999 yuan, 500 yuan lower than the initial price of the previous generation, the Pocket 3. It is rare for the starting price of a Pocket series product to be reduced while imaging specifications and functions continue to improve. The higher-end Pocket 4P is priced at 3,799 yuan, which may seem 300 yuan more expensive than the Pocket 3 at first glance.

However, considering the addition of the dual-camera system, 17-stop dynamic range, and LOFIC technology, its cost-performance ratio is clearly higher. The direct confrontation between DJI and Yeelight is pushing the gimbal camera market towards greater scale, with the battle no longer limited to these two entities. Multiple media reports have stated that OPPO launched a gimbal camera project codenamed 'Fuyao' in April 2026 and will collaborate with Hasselblad on image tuning, with the product expected to be released in the fourth quarter. vivo also initiated a similar project at the end of 2025, working with Zeiss on tuning and having Lixun Precision manufacture the products.

Mobile phone manufacturers are not starting from scratch in this market, having continuously invested in mobile imaging technology over the past few years. Companies such as OPPO and vivo have accumulated considerable expertise in sensor selection, lens modules, imaging chips, and computational photography. Compared to traditional imaging companies, mobile phone manufacturers also possess a large base of existing users and numerous offline stores, allowing them to establish distribution channels and educate users more quickly.

However, the first area to be affected by this competition may not be the high-end or professional markets but rather the entry-level market, where consumers are more sensitive to price. When mobile phone manufacturers enter this market, price is likely to be the first lever they use to drive market demand. Thanks to their large purchasing volumes and bargaining power in the supply chain, mobile phone manufacturers have the potential to reduce the price of gimbal cameras to the range of one or two thousand yuan, potentially converting ordinary users who were previously hesitant due to price into new consumers.

However, the imaging capabilities of mobile phones cannot be directly equated with those of gimbal cameras. Although mobile phone manufacturers can transfer their expertise in sensors, lenses, and computational photography, they still need to make significant improvements in gimbal control and software-hardware integration. Gao Chengyuan, chairman of Guangyuan Marketing Consulting, told Caijing World that the advantages of mobile phone manufacturers lie in their imaging supply chains, distribution channels, and user base, while their weaknesses lie in the precise control of three-axis gimbals and the coordination between imaging algorithms and gimbal systems. If these aspects are not properly optimized, it may result in unstable tracking, interrupted target tracking, reduced image quality in low-light conditions, or overheating during extended filming. From DJI's perspective, the technology required for stable gimbal control involves extensive engineering expertise. An internal source revealed that the core challenge lies in the gimbal control system's ability to accurately detect the user's intended movements and unexpected vibrations, and to predict and compensate for these movements in real-time through feedforward control.

In Gao Chengyuan's view, the entry of mobile phone manufacturers into this market is not yet sufficient to challenge DJI's technical advantages in the high-end market. These are systematic capabilities that DJI has developed over many years through continuous product iteration, and it will be difficult for mobile phone manufacturers to catch up simply by increasing technical specifications in the short term.

However, with their brand recognition, offline channels, and lower prices, if mobile phone manufacturers manage to address their shortcomings in gimbal control and system integration, the competition is likely to extend upward from the entry-level market. As a pioneer in this category, an internal DJI source told Caijing World that as hardware forms become more standardized, true differentiation lies beyond visible physical features and extends into invisible technical advantages and ecosystem experiences. If it is just a pixel-level replication of sensors, lenses, and configurations, that is essentially just a patchwork of supply chain technologies and does not truly reflect differentiation. The competition in the gimbal camera market has just begun, and with more new players entering, product iterations will accelerate, and prices will become more affordable. The once highly sought-after 'electronic Maotai' will eventually become more accessible to everyone. This marks a definitive shift from a duopoly to a multi-polar market structure where technical depth and supply chain resilience will determine long-term survival.