DJI’s iconic Phantom lineup of drones is not going anywhere, the company has confirmed. The confirmation comes amid rumors that DJI has been thinking about discontinuing the Phantom line. One can imagine why people would think that given that the Phantom 4 has basically vanished while the Phantom 5 is believed to have been shelved.
DJI’s Director of Public Safety Integration Romeo Durscher added fuel to the fire last month when he said on a podcast that “Yes, the Phantom line with the exception of the Phantom 4 Pro RTK has come to an end.”
That seemed to definitively answer a question that many DJI fans had been asking for a long time. Save for the RTK model, no other version of the latest Phantom drone has been available for almost a month. Some retailers even list them as being discontinued. This was followed up by a report from DroneDJ which claimed that the Phantom 5, which DJI was working on and was expected to feature interchangeable lenses, has been canceled. Now, though, the company is saying there’s no truth to these reports.
DJI communications director Adam Lisberg told The Verge that “Romeo misspoke.” An official statement from the company clarifies that “Due to a shortage of parts from a supplier, DJI is unable to manufacture more Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 drones until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause and recommend our customers explore DJI’s Mavic series drones as an alternative solution to serve their needs.”
However, as the scribe points out, this has been DJI’s explanation for the past five months so there may be more here than meets the eye. As for a Phantom 5 with interchangeable lenses, Lisberg says that “we’ve never said we considered making a Phantom 5 in the first place, so there’s nothing to cancel.”