Is Insta360 really that awesome? Can it surpass DJI just by giving away a house at the annual meeting?
The growth and shortcomings of Insta360 are clearly visible. Only by strengthening its technological foundation can it gain a firm foothold in the long - term competition.
At the beginning of 2026, Insta360's annual meeting, featuring "giving away houses, cars, and generous rewards to all employees", went viral in the tech circle. Founder Liu Jingkang publicly announced that 2025 was the year with the highest revenue in the company's history, and the growth rate in the fourth quarter reached a new high in nearly ten quarters. This high - profile incentive intuitively demonstrated Insta360's growth momentum and became a landmark event marking the rise of China's new AI + hardware forces. However, beyond the fanfare, the industry needs to stay calm: rapid growth, high profits, and popular products do not necessarily mean deep barriers, strong technology, and a stable foundation.
In the smart imaging market, Insta360 has rapidly influenced the global landscape through its panoramic camera business. However, beneath the prosperity, its shortcomings are also obvious. In particular, there are objective and hard - to - bridge short - term gaps between Insta360 and DJI and Huawei in terms of the founder's style, product line structure, and underlying technology accumulation. This article takes a neutral perspective, focusing solely on Insta360 to review its real competitiveness, global layout, and core shortcomings.
01
Behind the Annual Meeting's House - Giving Incentive:
Impressive Growth, but Obvious Concerns
Insta360's rise is a typical example of breaking through in a niche market. The company started with panoramic cameras and once captured over 70% of the global market share. Subsequently, it expanded into action cameras and panoramic drones, with overseas revenue accounting for over 70%. In 2025, both its revenue and profit reached new highs, and the capital market and institutions have given optimistic expectations.
However, from the perspective of corporate characteristics, Insta360 is a company highly driven by its founder. Liu Jingkang has a high sensitivity to products, user experience, and market communication. He is good at creating hit products and implementing projects quickly. The team's execution ability and incentive mechanism are among the best in the industry. This model has strong explosive power in the startup stage but also has its own shortcomings: the strategy focuses more on front - end products, with insufficient investment in underlying technology and medium - to - long - term platform building, and the organizational system highly depends on personal judgment.
Compared with DJI's decades - long engineering accumulation in flight control, gimbals, and image transmission, and Huawei's underlying layout in chips, communication, and full - stack AI, Insta360's technological depth is obviously insufficient. In core areas such as self - developed chips, independent image processors, high - precision motion control, and patent defense matrix, Insta360 is still in a catching - up position.
The problems are more obvious when reflected in products: its panoramic capabilities are top - notch, but its action cameras lag behind competitors in professional indicators such as image quality, low - light performance, and anti - shake; the drone business is just starting, and its core capabilities in flight control, obstacle avoidance, and image transmission have not been fully verified; there is still significant room for improvement in heat generation, battery life, and stability of some models.
In other words, market success does not equal technological barriers, and impressive revenue does not mean a solid foundation.
Insta360's global layout has a first - mover advantage. Its products are sold in more than 200 countries and regions, with overseas revenue accounting for over 70%. It has established channels and brand recognition in major markets such as Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. This is also an important advantage that enables it to withstand the low - price impact of DJI. However, globalization also brings new pressures. Overseas compliance, patent risks, and local operations all pose higher requirements for Insta360, which lacks underlying technological moats.
02
Face - to - Face Competition with Giants:
Insta360 is Breaking Through but Under Full - Scale Pressure
The competition between Insta360 and DJI has shifted from early - stage complementary positioning to full - scale face - to - face competition. Panoramic cameras, action cameras, drones, and ecological accessories all overlap, and they are competing head - on in terms of price, channels, marketing, and technology.
DJI relies on its supply - chain scale, cost control, channel barriers, and engineering accumulation to continuously squeeze Insta360's core market with a low - price strategy; Insta360, on the other hand, holds its ground with panoramic differentiation, AI algorithms, and lightweight design. The significant increase in Insta360's sales expenses in 2025 also confirms the intense competition from the side.
An unavoidable fact is that Insta360's advantages are concentrated in the application, experience, and algorithm layers. It is better at making products user - friendly, fun, and easy to spread; however, there is an obvious generation gap between Insta360 and DJI and Huawei in areas that determine long - term competitiveness, such as underlying imaging, motion control, core components, and full - stack self - development.
DJI's moat comes from more than a decade of intensive investment, and Huawei's advantage lies in its underlying technology platform. Currently, Insta360 mainly focuses on differential competition and does not have the hard power for all - around confrontation. From the overall industry perspective, Insta360's rise has broken the long - term monopoly of overseas brands. However, it must also be clear - headed that the window period relying on a single hit product, single function, or single market segment is rapidly narrowing.
03
The Quantitative Gap in Technology Investment:
The All - Around Generation Gap between Insta360 and Pioneers
If we compare R & D investment, the gap between Insta360 and DJI and Huawei is both quantitative and dimensional. Huawei has invested over 1.2 trillion yuan in R & D in the past decade, with annual investment often exceeding 100 billion yuan. Nearly 30% of the investment is in basic research. It has achieved full - stack self - development in chips, communication, imaging, and AI, with a total of over 150,000 patents, forming an unshakable underlying barrier. DJI's average annual R & D investment is in the billions. It has achieved self - development in the entire chain of flight control, gimbals, image transmission, and motors, with tens of millions of lines of flight - control code and a vertically integrated supply chain, crushing competitors in both cost and performance.
Even though Insta360 has a relatively high R & D expense ratio, its absolute investment scale is only a fraction of DJI's and one - hundredth of Huawei's. Its investment is concentrated in application - layer algorithms such as panoramic stitching and AI editing, and it highly depends on external sources for underlying hardware, core components, and basic software.
This investment gap directly translates into a technological generation gap: Insta360 has no self - developed imaging chips or independent ISPs, and its sensor calibration, heat dissipation, and power - consumption control have obvious shortcomings; its drone flight control, image transmission, and obstacle - avoidance capabilities are at a novice level, with a reliability gap of more than two generations compared with DJI; its patents are mainly for appearance and utility models, with insufficient coverage of invention patents, making it vulnerable to patent disputes when facing large companies. Simply put, Insta360 "makes up for technology with creativity", while DJI and Huawei "define products with technology". It can survive in the short term through differentiation but will be at a disadvantage in long - term head - to - head competition.
04
AI is an Amplifier,
But Not a Lifesaver for Insta360
AI has become a standard feature in smart hardware, but it can both amplify advantages and expose shortcomings.
In terms of user experience, AI makes Insta360's automatic editing, intelligent tracking, and 3D modeling more user - friendly. However, AI can only optimize the experience and cannot compensate for the hardware foundation. Sensor size, optical quality, heat - dissipation structure, battery life, and stability are still the determining factors for the product's upper limit, which can only be improved through long - term engineering accumulation.
In terms of application scenarios, Insta360 has entered the cultural tourism, security, and industrial markets from the consumer end. However, it still mainly relies on hardware sales, with shallow industry solutions and a lack of end - to - cloud platform capabilities. Once DJI and Huawei make panoramic capabilities a standard feature, Insta360's differential advantage will quickly shrink.
In terms of business models, the industry is shifting from "selling hardware" to "hardware + algorithm + service + ecosystem". However, Insta360's revenue highly depends on hardware, with a low proportion of software and services. Its ecosystem is far weaker than that of DJI and Huawei, and its ability to resist price wars is limited. In summary, AI is an important growth factor, but it cannot bridge the underlying technological gap or replace long - term R & D investment.
05
Future Trends and Realistic Challenges
In the next few years, the direction of the AI hardware industry is clear. For Insta360, it is both an opportunity and three realistic challenges.
First, products will become smarter. In the future, devices will not only execute commands but also be able to see, hear, understand, and make independent decisions, truly becoming intelligent agents. This requires companies to have more underlying AI capabilities, not just superficial features.
Second, selling single products alone will not lead to long - term success. Companies must build ecosystems and platforms, integrating software, services, accessories, and industry solutions to establish real barriers.
Third, going global will only become more difficult. Overseas patent, compliance, and data - security requirements will become stricter. It is no longer just about shipping products overseas for sale but requires more mature systematic capabilities.
For Insta360, the challenges are very specific: it cannot always rely on the founder's personal decision - making and needs to establish a systematic organization; it cannot only focus on superficial user experience but must focus on improving hard technologies such as chips, imaging, and flight control; it cannot rely solely on hardware sales for profit and must quickly develop its software and ecosystem. No matter how fast it grows, if the foundation is not solid, the larger the scale, the higher the risk.
The growth and shortcomings of Insta360 are clearly visible. Only by strengthening its technological foundation can it gain a firm foothold in the long - term competition.
This article is from the WeChat official account “Liujiu Finance” (ID: liujiucaijing69). The author is Liujiu. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.