GoPro to discontinue three cameras and exit entry-level market

As a happy GoPro 3 Black owner, here is what would tempt me to upgrade:

1) A global shutter, to avoid distortions in fast moving and rotating objects, and kill the "jello" effect

2) Longer battery life, so a whole day's shooting could be accomplished without having to open the waterproof casing

3) Option for a rectlinear, wide angle lens (say 20/24mm 135 equivalent) rather than the current 170-degree fish-eye

4) Better sound quality while remaining waterproof

Brian

All these "American companies", like GoPro and Apple, make all their cameras in China. It is normal that the Chinese now are able to produce similar or better cameras for a fraction of the price. They get the technology for free and they are experts in manufacturing anything, a win-win situation.

Stop lying to consumers. For example, $399 model has a monitor on the back and 4k video at 15fps and based on the indoor quality, I feel that the camera is "pushing the envelope" in a bad way in order to create 4k content. Yes, it creates 4k size video but the quality is poor indoors. The $499 model produces 30fps (no monitor on back). If they want to go after it, they need to drop the price of their $499 model down to $349 and I feel sales would increase dramatically. Rather than offer a limited 4k with screen, re-introduce it at 30fps and sell it for $399. How hard is that logic? Don't get into the software crap. You aren't good at it. You don't understand it. Partner with someone else like Sony and offer a free version and a pro version. Duh! We have gone many years without software being created from you and it works out better that way. Dramatically work on indoors quality to remove the noise and offer higher quality and you have it. Higher quality indoors. Lower Prices for 4k.

When this stock was trading at 98$ two years ago I was scratching my head, glad I didn't buy the hype. Now trading at 9$ and probably less than 1$ in a year's time. Fad turned into commodity... now Apple better watch out too, Huawei has decided to enter US market with its six inch Mate 8 phone, that may eat away at AAPL's cash cow that is the iphone.............

They must have done something wrong because I can't walk down the street without seeing a handful of people with one of these things attatched to their bike/skateboard/cat etc

Maybe their mistake was taking the company public, which sometimes causes a company to become focused on short term goals instead of long term goals.

I was surprised that they thought their niche market was enough to go public, and perhaps I was right. time will tell.

Most of the GoPros are too big. An action camera should be as small as possible. I own the little one (GoPro 4 Session), and it's pretty good, but at 200 dollars it's at the very upper limit of what I'd pay.

Pivot makes HD sunglasses, and that's kind of cool. I imagine the action cameras are going to be more wearable in the future.

Get smaller. That's important for action sports.

Now that Nikon is getting into that market, GoPro is likely to become the "Blackberry" of action cameras.

GoPro had a nice head start in the market. They came up with a camera system no one else had. Since it was the only thing, people put up with the down sides which include poor batteries, clunky interface, flakey wifi connectivity, over priced cameras and accessories. The video quality was very good for what was available.

However, GoPro stopped innovating and thought the competition would never catch up. They got it wrong. They cut the price of one of their models by half, and that still didn't help them.

The only thing that is currently keeping GoPro going is market penetration and market weight (sort of like MS Windows). Eventually that will not be enough and GoPro will become a niche product. They either need to cater to the entry/enthusiast market or go high end/high cost for professional production equipment.

However, I think the writing is already on the wall.l

Entry level models are key. That's what most of us buy. They need to make an entry level camera that competes.

Make sense. There are so many action cams on the market now that are not only cheaper, but give users more features (image stabilization via gyro for example) and more accessories bundled in that allows users to get going out of the box without having to buy additional stuff. And their quality is good enough, especially after the disappointing GoPro Hero 4.

Pros will still pay $$$ for GoPro for the brand and reliability. That will be GoPro's remaining market. For the rest of the consumers, the variety of good enough and cheaper cams are more suitable.

The action cam fad has peaked, and the market is saturated with cheap knock off action cams.

So GoPro does the ONLY sensible thing. They move up market, to avoid competition from cheap knock offs, to leverage their brand name, and to seek higher margins.

And isn't this exactly what most camera makers are doing today?

GoPro should leverage the brand recognition their name has and their association with adventure sports to branch into rugged, weatherproof travel/adventure cameras with larger sensors (4/3).

"...the company’s recent misfortunes aren’t due to increased competition."

Yeah, and the decline of the small compact camera market has nothing to do with the rise of smartphones.

stop the non removable battery cameras...they don't make sense.

All I have the say is it will be a down hill ride for them I think. I have had nothing but problems with the last few cameras from GoPro. My Hero4 black is being sent back for falling apart, the lens retaining ring will not stay on and it was like pulling teeth to get GoPro to help me fix it. All I asked for was what part I needed and how much it was. After weeks of emails at least they will take care of the fix. The other issues I have is the inability for the camera to stay connected with my iPhone. I spend more time trying to get the connection reestablished than be My anle to use it. One I get. Are turned working camera I'll be jumping ship for a try with the new Nikon. To many options on the market that are less expensive and seem to have the quality as well.

"GoPro has had trouble attracting consumers with its Hero4 line, being forced to slash the price of its Session action camera twice. The product, which originally launched for $399.99, can now be had for just $199.99."

http://betanews.com/2016/02/04/gopro-will-only-sell-hero4-action-cameras-from-april-discontinuing-older-models/

So they're going... pro? Yuck yuck. Sorry.

Smart move. They cannot compete with the cheap knockoffs on the low end so they are better off sticking with the high end. The difference between a knockoff and the Hero+ LCD is inconsequential for the casual user butt the difference between the Hero4 and even the best knockoff is huge for a pro user.

Mature market approaching saturation.

Nick Woodman should pay attention to his company's slow collapse and not silly crap like ordering a $40 million yacht.

Uh oh.

The rise and fall of GoPro.

BC

They abandoned their entry-level market? They now should change the name from GoPro to Pro then.

What a sick and righteous move! <sarcasm>

Sell! (Their stock)

If every camera maker focused on software things would get a lot better for users.

Wow! Exit the entry-level market. That's crazy.

I always assumed those were the only GoPros that anyone ever bought. Then again, I guess even cheap GoPros used to be $200.

Tough times, eh...

I think GoPros are too expensive and have very poor battery performance. Other companies have solved the first problem, the second, not yet.