back to article GoPro revenues skydive

Sports camera company GoPro desperately needs good holiday season sales after a terrible third quarter. Shares fell more than 20 per cent in after-hours trading before recovering most of their value on Friday, after the company reported a 40 per cent drop in revenue. Analysts were already expecting a hefty drop, but the 40 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The market is probably getting saturated

    Anyone who wants one of these already has one, so they have to convince people to replace their older perfectly good one. Smartphones may be in the same boat these days, but it is a lot easier to internally justify a "not really needed" upgrade for something you use for perhaps several hours a day than something that most owners probably use less than a few hours a month.

    As well, smartphones perform a lot of functions, so incremental improvements in multiple functions increases the odds of hitting a particular consumer's "sweet spot". What can be upgraded on a Go Pro other than the quality of the camera?

    1. Adam 52 Silver badge

      Re: The market is probably getting saturated

      They're working on it, the new Session has an internal battery so will die naturally after a few tears.

    2. Little Mouse

      Re: The market is probably getting saturated

      And saturation isn't their only problem - Go Pros typically command a premium price, but there are some pretty decent alternatives available from other producers these days for less than half the price.

    3. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: The market is probably getting saturated

      There could be an up-tick in sales if people decide to document their involvement in the forthcoming brexit war, as brextremists battle remoaners in the street, or America's implosion as Krooked Klintonites take on the Tremendous Trumpeteers.

      1. MyffyW Silver badge

        Re: The market is probably getting saturated

        I think GoPro have failed to recognize that most consumer technologies are driven by the sex industry.

        Now, speaking personally, unless it was shot sensitively and the plot required it I'd rather not have a head-mounted camera attached to my lover, but I daresay there is a market.

  2. Gene Cash Silver badge

    The IPO killed 'em

    GoPro is no longer focused on making a quality high end pro piece of kit, as their drone POS shows. Instead they're trying to dance around to the tune that Wall Street is playing, and not understanding that's just not possible.

    convince people to replace their older perfectly good one

    Well, they've been doing that, by introducing new cameras that are significantly better, with useful new features. Granted, this isn't something they can do forever, but they're sort of the "Apple" of action camera makers, and they need to keep their reputation.

    However, now they're doing things like "OK WE MADE A DRONE NOW LIKE YOU SAID YOU WANTED, WALL STREET! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?" and that drone is getting YouTube reviews with people saying "I hate to say this, but this is the worst drone I've ever encountered"

    They need to realize that no, the stock analysts will NEVER be happy and anyone trying to do so is doomed to failure. They need to get back to making good, if expensive, stuff that people want.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The company hopes

    it's sad times that if you fail to generate enough profit very short term, regardless of whether it's by your faults, or nobody's fault, you're doomed. Give us shiny shiny NOW, (or) damn you! :(

  4. Packet

    IMO, the problem with GoPro is the feature set.

    It's stayed stagnant pretty much.

    The quality of the lens and the resulting quality of the video has increased tremendously, but the lack of features is what holds back more sales. (That's the group I identify with)

    Slow motion processing in parallel with regular video would be a big deal - and something I was wishing for in the 5.

    1. Blotto Silver badge

      @Packet

      Exactly that

      I've been wanting gps and g sensors so I can overlay my mtb rides with strava/garmin connect stats and see how much g I'm pulling in the berms over jumps and of course when I crash. Otherwise not much point bragging about the same rides everyone else has done.

  5. Jimbo in Thailand
    Facepalm

    GoPro... [yawn... zzzzzzz... zzzzzz...]

    Once innovative and a world leader in a tiny niche market, GoPro execs sadly fell into the fatal trap of sitting on their arses and basking in the (temporary) glory of a single product's phenomenal success. Sadly, many companies suffer from the same false sense of well-being if/when they're lucky enough to encounter such incredible early market success. Action cams are now a mature market, with a ton of Chinese knockoffs that, in many cases, are superior to recent GoPro models, and like some have mentioned, half the cost.

    IMO, GoPro recently entering into the aerial photography drone market with their Karma drone is too little too late. And, except for it's easily removable stabilized-gimbal-mounted camera, the GoPro Karma is woefully lacking in features behind DJI's similar fold-up offering, the Mavic Pro, which is a technological marvel. Even more amazing is that DJI, a Chinese company, has been, and is still leading the market with its own innovative high-tech models.

    GoPro execs had better get off their arses... and soon... or GoPro won't be around much longer. And that will be a shame since more competition in the market is always good for us.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They need something fresh and to create a better connected ecosystem- the potential has to be bigger than a boxy, quite bulky camera

  7. Clockworkseer

    Certainly wouldn't be the first company to create the market leading product, then sit back and coast on that success, only to notice too late that they aren't the only game in town any longer. Probably not the last either.

  8. BLD
    FAIL

    Reasons for decline in revenue is simple their own accessories and competition

    We can talk all day about many things, but for me it's simple.

    There's a lot of competition out there, so when you bring out a product which renders a good few of your existing accessories useless, you think. What an I buying here? A totally new product with accessories, so I might as well take a look at the other offerings on the market.

    It stands to reason that GoPro looses business that way. Some other options are cheaper, come with accessories or are just better devices.

    Compatibility example.

    1. Housings - As a diver this is important and there was a time when a dive case came with a GoPro this alone made the purchased a no-brainer. Now I have I buy a new case if I want the Hero 5. Not to mention spares for trips.

    2. Batteries and chargers - GoPro has always been less than amazing with battery life. So I stacked up on batteries and chargers. With the Hero 5 you'd have to buy new ones and the additional batteries which plugged in to the port on the back, they are now not usable with the Hero 5. There was simply no obvious reasons to do this again! It smacks of bad design or they are doing it on purpose.

    3. The loss of the port - this renders lots of items useless.

    I get why they wanted to have a screen, however not having the port kills all add-on's. To be fair why not simply have the screen removable like the old one and keep the port. Then you have choice.

    4. Form factor, it's changed again, so things like filters won't fit either. Then there's things like carry cases which won't fit, and so on. Simply no need to do this. Why not be clever with the tech design and keep the same size, or at least at the front and all one needs to do is get a new rear door for the housings.

    -------

    IMHO GoPro, you've messed up big time.

    For me you should have keep the Hero form factor and crammed in all the tech you can and kept the port. Then upgrading "just the camera" would have been a no-brainer as it has been for the past 2/3/3+ and 4 which I've purchased. I'd have purchased other things too over time as they came out or when they broke.

    You could have changed the lens, but at least external case mounted filters would continue to work.

    You could have kept the same battery size and upgraded the capacity if possible.

    You could have kept it at a reasonable price without a dive case, or offered it as "free" and kept the pretty high price.

    As for the Session, I'm not sure what you were trying for here, the Hero is small enough. OK, have a cheaper product, but seriously a non-removable battery makes it product doomed for battery failure and a forced purchase.

    Finally, essentially you've lost my faith that you'll simply do this again and devalue if I invest again in another Hero 5.

    However, by then I'd have probably already purchased a 4K or higher 360 camera, so you might have lost me for a long time. Which is sad.

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