GoPro’s second act
SEPTEMBER 17TH, 2016 — POST 257
This coming Monday, September 19th, GoPro is set to announce its first piece of hardware that isn’t an action camera. Called Karma, GoPro is expected to release its own drone. This product category owes a lot to GoPro. The initial releases of the dominant consumer drone manufacturers in DJI and Parrot were often best used by foregoing the subpar onboard camera and just strapping on one of GoPro’s Hero series of action cameras. However, with recent releases like the astounding DJI Phantom 4, those looking to get the best images out of their drones no longer need a GoPro — the stock cameras have reached parody in quality and ease of use. So without being able to literally be tethered to the growth in this product category, GoPro knows they need to get in on their own terms.
Earlier this year The Verge published a feature about GoPro and the few course-correct moves they’re considering. Speaking with Sean O’Kane, GoPro CEO Nick Woodman relayed the reasons for a loss of investor confidence:
“Our growth rate has slowed, and some analysts have attributed this to competitive threats and our ability to address a market beyond our core customer.”
That core customer — the action-obsessed videographer enthusiast — has long been saturated by GoPro’s offerings. But when that core customer already has your product, and new versions provide little reason to upgrade, you need to cast your net a little wider. At the time of this piece, the main course correction being entertained was software. With so much video being shot on smartphones with performance enough to process and edit, GoPro have started to build out their own video editing software. Coupling this with entrance into VR and 360˚ video with the Omni — an aluminium housing to hold 6 GoPro Hero 4s in a ball to shoot spherically — GoPro have been able to provide a comprehensive end-to-end, mid-range solution for the newest video formats.
With Omni and Autopano Video Pro (the stitching software made by Kolor in partnership with GoPro), however, GoPro was entering a very different kind of market to the one that the Hero cameras so convincingly dominated a few years ago. With action cameras, GoPro really was the only one caring about. Sure, Sony has one and there have been a bunch that have come in Hero’s wake, but if you wanted to best, you went GoPro. With VR and 360˚, players like Samsung — powered also by their VR push with Gear VR — and Kodak make hardware that in a lot of ways is more compelling than Omni (for one, they’re dedicated: they don’t require a brute wrangling together of 6 regular Hero 4s).
And the drone market is similar. There are not only the high marketing budgets and compelling products of just DJI and Parrot GoPro has to compete with. The drone space is widening out with all varieties — from those that track the user to those that can support DSLR cameras. Like VR and 360˚, GoPro are once again facing a space that already has its champions. Exactly how the Karma drone will embody GoPro’s hopes to penetrate this market remains to be seen.
The Motley Fool today published a piece that dissects teaser video for the Karma. From their analysis, the drone will be low-profile, have superior obstacle avoidance capabilities, and possibly include automatic cancellation of the characteristic whirr of drone blades heard in most drone videos. All of these are features that have the possibility of exposing drones to a widening market as well as courting current owners of competing products. But it would seem almost delusional to expect that GoPro might be able to install their once-dominant brand presence into a product category that has long left them behind.
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