The originator of action cameras has been laid off! Just because China's DJI is too fierce?

When it comes to the name GoPro, even those digital enthusiasts who don't like to go out should be familiar with it.

As probably the most famous action camera brand in the world, GoPro has been everywhere, from skiing to cross-country biking, from extreme surfing to other outdoor sports, GoPro once supported half of the extreme sports, and became synonymous with these adrenaline-filled sports, and even once appeared "without GoPro, what Vlog do you shoot". In addition to outdoor scenes, in some professional film and television scenes, GoPro has also been ubiquitous, and even the video team under Lei Technology has also configured GoPro to shoot special scenes such as driving and sports.

However, today's GoPro may not be as nourishing as everyone thinks.

(Source: WSJ)

Recently, GoPro, an action camera manufacturer, disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company plans to reduce the number of employees worldwide by about 4%, which is expected to be reduced from the current 930 to about 870 people, and the business restructuring is expected to generate a total cost of about $7.5 million, but the layoffs are expected to bring considerable cost reductions in the future.

From 1500+ employees at its peak in 2016 to 870+ employees today, the size of the action camera company has shrunk by half in eight years.

On the one hand, we can think of it as a manifestation of GoPro's "lean management" ability, which is a capability for such a well-known brand with only a few hundred employees. But on the other hand, the constant layoffs also show that GoPro is "hard to live up to its reputation", so what has created such a difficult to hide decline that has made GoPro go from their own imaginary hero (its most recognizable product line is called Hero) to a mortal who keeps laying off employees to glorify its financial figures?

The first brother in the past, life is not easy?

To say that GoPro once defined action cameras, I don't think many people would object.

According to Wikipedia, GoPro was founded by Nick Woodman in 2002. Depressed by the collapse of his first start-up, Funbug, he decided to take a five-month surfing trip to Australia and Indonesia to melt his depression and see it as his last adventure to say goodbye to his youth.

（图源：WIKIPEDIA）

It was during this surfing trip that Woodman had the original vision for the GoPro. Cameras were so big and heavy that even a relatively small DV couldn't meet Woodman's requirements for POV surfing, and he thought, "If I could keep the camera as small as possible and attach it to my wrist with a slim wristband, wouldn't I be able to shoot the perfect surf?"

Driven by this idea, Woodman founded GoPro that year, which means "become a Pro athlete".

Two years later, GoPro's first action camera, the Hero 35mm, was born.

The original GoPro was actually a very rough product, using a 35mm film ODM camera from the mysterious East, and adding a waterproof case and battery designed by Woodman himself. But it is such a rough product that has opened up a whole new horizon for a group of extreme sports enthusiasts, and also prompted the birth of what we call Vlog video category today.

(图源:PeatPixel)

In the years that followed, GoPro continued to work in the direction of action cameras. In 2006, the original Digital Hero brought up to 10 seconds of 240p video recording, and in 2008, GoPro launched the first Wide Hero with a 170° wide-angle lens, and the following year began to be marketed on Youtube, making the cool videos shot by extreme sports stars the best promotional advertisements.

Precise product positioning and appropriate publicity channels have jointly contributed to one of the most representative brands in the first decade of the 21st century.

By 2014, GoPro had become synonymous with action cameras. At that time, GoPro's market capitalization was as high as $13 billion, and its stock price soared 140% in the first three months, becoming a rising star in the entire Silicon Valley and even the entire technology industry.

Then, as we always say, the unexpected happened just when GoPro was confident that it was going to be the next Apple.

There are many competitors, and the market competition is becoming increasingly fierce

Since 2015, GoPro can be said to have fallen into a haze all the way and has not turned over.

There are three reasons for this problem.

The first is the issue of product positioning. In order to deal with the competition crisis, GoPro once offered a sea of machine tactics, which not only made consumers very confused at the time, but also cut the screen of the main low-end one, so it is not new to be complained about by the entire Internet.

(Source: GoPro)

The second is the failure of business transformation. Internet companies have high price-to-earnings ratios and hardware on the contrary, so many companies will strengthen the value of non-hardware businesses such as Internet services and content after going public, and GoPro is no exception, but it is really attracted by the prospect of "content business" that it uses to attract shareholders, and it will expand the company to 1,500 people within a year. However, these 1,500 people not only failed to bring about the expansion of the content business, but also brought a heavy burden to GoPro's own performance, and caused GoPro to suffer a performance loss since its IPO. At the same time, when GoPro vigorously develops the "content business", it can no longer focus on products, and the pace of product innovation cannot keep up with market demand, leaving a lot of opportunities for competitors.

The most important thing is that the popularity of action cameras has naturally brought more market players. In addition to well-known companies Sony, HTC and Xiaomi, the well-known domestic action camera brand Insta360 was also born in the same year, and the products of the latecomers are better or almost easy to use, and the price is lower, for example, the price of the Xiaoyi action camera at that time was only 499 yuan, and the GoPro Hero4 Session, which has been repeatedly complained about, actually costs 399 US dollars. Competitors often achieve more than 80% of the functionality at less than 1/3 the price.

(Source: Xiaoyi)

Although the follow-up Hero 6 once successfully saved a lot of brand reputation with its self-developed chip GP1, GoPro's successive failures in other fields and the inaction in iterative products such as Hero 7 and Hero 8 still made them fall into dire straits.

At the same time, domestic action cameras are rising rapidly, Insta360 released the "Insta360 Nano" in 2016, with its own unique 360-degree panoramic video shooting, as well as the software function of direct connection to mobile phones for shooting, which has successfully lowered the threshold for consumers to use, and avoided the segmentation track where GoPro is located, and successfully cultivated a group of unique product audiences.

(Source: Shadow Stone)

In 2019, DJI also entered the field of action cameras, releasing its first action camera, DJI Osmo Action, in May of the same year. With DJI's reputation and popularity in the field of consumer drones, as well as its advantages in pricing, this product was also successfully sold out as soon as it was launched, injecting more vitality into the action camera market.

(Source: DJI)

Now, just when GoPro's new product, GoPro Hero12 Black, is still equipped with hard toothpaste, Osmo Action4 has used stronger 360° image stabilization and excellent night shooting function, and Insta360 AcePro is co-branded with Leica, using a one-inch sensor that GoPro users have been hungry for several years.

GoPro has encountered a crisis, and the Chinese manufacturers are to blame for being too fierce?

Now it seems that GoPro's crisis is almost doomed.

The strategic short-sightedness of the product and the quick success of the business have made GoPro lose its first-mover advantage early, not only the new field has not been expanded, but its core business has also been affected.

But the crisis of GoPro does not mean the crisis of the entire market. According to the survey of market institutions, the domestic action camera market will still maintain a good growth momentum in 2023. Taking the e-commerce platform JD.com as an example, data shows that the annual sales of action cameras on the JD.com platform are 570,000+, a year-on-year increase of about 17%, and the annual sales are about 850 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 30%. In addition, the average market price of action cameras is also increasing, with an increase of about 11%.

(Source: Whale Staff)

Nowadays, in the action camera market, domestic brands DJI and Insta360 have become the three giants alongside GoPro, with a combined market share of nearly 90%. It's just that the proportion of GoPro is steadily declining, just like the other two domestic manufacturers are steadily rising.

Today, Go Pro is still actively expanding its business beyond cameras.

In January, the company announced that it would acquire Forcite Helmet Systems, a technology helmet company. GoPro is planning to develop its own line of GoPro-branded helmets, with the goal of "improving the performance and safety of various types of helmets through technology-based motorcycle helmets".

But just like their failures in the drone and content fields in the past, if GoPro can't find a way to break the game, then the four-color square logo they are proud of is likely to only appear on other devices in the form of "GoPro co-branding" in the future.