SHANGHAI - China's SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd, a popular maker of drones which is investigating suspected corruption by its employees, said on Monday the matter involved staff inflating the cost of parts for personal gain.

The privately held company estimates such incidents could cost the company up to 1 billion yuan ($147 million) but said it "did not incur a full year loss in 2018".

On Friday, DJI said in a statement that it was "currently investigating a number of serious cases of corruption at the company leading to losses of more than RMB 1 billion for 2018". 

DJI did not respond to further questions about its earnings.

($1 = 6.7953 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Josh Horwitz; editing by Jason Neely) ((Josh.Horwitz@thomsonreuters.com; +86 21 61041734))