Action camera maker, GoPro Inc., continues to battle harsh challenges and one that glaringly stares at them as we sift through 2017 is the increasing competition. Of course this has been on for a while but it keeps getting worse year after year. At one point, GoPro did indeed make massive leaps in the action camera space and this kept its customers coming back for more never minding the prices. So why is this no longer the case? We’ll find that out in a few.
After failing to meet its financial projections in 2015, the story repeated itself in 2016. GoPro not only saw loss in the value of its stock by more than half, it also failed to reward its shareholders. Each passing quarter hasn’t been any different, the revenue has been on a downward trend with the third quarter of its 2016 fiscal year being the fourth successive quarter they reported a similar trend: negative revenue growth.
Garmin, Nikon, Sony, Olympus are some of the brands out to give GoPro a run for their money. Each has taken on GoPro head-to-head with cameras that promise a similar or better experience to what GoPro offers but at a similar or lower price. This has been a real threat to GoPro’s market lead in this space.
Let’s face it, GoPro cameras don’t come cheap. You might have to fork out a fortune just to lay your hands on some of its best models. So to many, even the die-hard Go-Pro fans, the emerging alternatives are a welcome relief.
Garmin, for instance, joined the fray with their Garmin VIRB XE, an action camera that can endure the toughest of environments, whether underwater or high up in the air, while recording any action or adventure sport. It records not just rich but wide angle and high definition footage that could match up to GoPro’s standard.
Sony also hasn’t been left behind and their AS50 action camera even promises more than you could get from GoPro key amongst them being the built-in SteadyShot stabilization, a feature that takes away all those image stabilization hassles. Overall, it packs solid features enough to give GoPro cameras a run for their money.
Dozens of GoPro alternatives have already rocked this space and the selections are sure to leave you marveled.
Lifestyle technology is no doubt a cutthroat space and low-cost Chinese action camera makers together with other western makers are out to slim GoPro’s chances of survival. Keep in mind that the company is already battling harsh obstacles including its failed GoPro Karma drone. A few of them would lose power during flight and this prompted the company to recall them.
In fact, the recall of its first drone was more like the final nail in the coffin in stripping them off their revered status as Silicon Valley’s hardware favorite. This came immediately after missed deadlines, production delays, failed launches and as we saw earlier, failure to meet sales expectations. However, in January of 2017 during CES 2017, the GoPro Karma Drone was relaunched again and this time round it promises a lot more good for its customers.
All in all, with all of the challenges we’ve looked at so far combined, it’s sure going to take more than good luck to have GoPro survive the action camera market.
