GoPro stock crumbles on Hero8 production delay admission

[Shawn Knight]

Why it matters: GoPro's "late stage production delay" couldn't come at a worse time. As we head into the lucrative holiday buying season, the action camera maker won't have its new wares on the market until much later than originally anticipated and shareholders aren't happy about it.

GoPro earlier this week announced its next flagship camera, the Hero8 Black, alongside a modular accessory system and a dual lens camera in the GoPro Max. All seemed well for the action camera maker but a day later, the company cut its revenue and profit outlook for 2019 from between $1.25 billion to $1.28 billion down to between $1.22 billion and $1.25 billion. In terms of profit, that translates to from $0.37 to $0.49 per share down to $0.33 to $0.39 per share, respectively, citing a production delay with the new Hero8 Black.

The annual growth forecast, as a result, went from nine to 12 percent down to six to nine percent.

As a result, GoPro said it would ship its new hardware in the fourth quarter instead of the third as initially planned.

This, in turned, triggered a massive drop in GoPro’s share price. As of writing, share value is down more than 21 percent on the news to $4.03. If the losses hold, it’d be the worst intraday performance for GoPro this year according to Reuters.

GoPro described the incident as a “late stage production delay” but didn’t elaborate beyond that. Given the vague statement, it could be any number of things holding up production, from an actual on-the-line issue to something less severe like a packaging problem.

Masthead credit: GoPro camera by Stafano Garau

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https://www.techspot.com/news/82190-gopro-stock-crumbles-hero8-production-delay-admission.html

 

[ckm88]

Damn, I don't think they are going to survive much longer. I give them max another 3 years.

 

[Uncle Al]

So typical when the marketing people fail to talk to the manufacturing people ..... just plain dumb!

 

[amstech]

I like GoPro products, they are solid.
But its hard to justify the price of $400 or so bucks, I got my Akaso EK7000 for $60 and it records at 4K/30FPS, 1080P/60FPS and takes a 64GB MicroSD, works great.

 

[mbrowne5061]

Damn, I don't think they are going to survive much longer. I give them max another 3 years.

You realize that stock prices don't actually matter when it comes to company longevity, right? GoPro doesn't have any outstanding debts that are threatening to sink them, so those shares that are out there are pretty much irrelevant to GoPro's business beyond any voting rights and dividends owed to the shareholders.

If they were expecting to do another round of capital raising to pay off debts by offering another round of shares, then yeah, a 20% dip would be a huge issue for them - but they aren't, so it isn't.

 

[Burty117]

I like GoPro products, they are solid.
But its hard to justify the price of $400 or so bucks, I got my Akaso EK7000 for $60 and it records at 4K/30FPS, 1080P/60FPS and takes a 64GB MicroSD, works great.

I got a GoPro from work, what I learnt was the image quality was miles above a lot of the cheap camera's out there.

Even the cheapest ones can do 4k recording of some kind now, but it looks terrible in comparison.

 

[Shadowboxer]

I’d love a go pro hero 8. Unfortunately the price is too high for something that would get bashed around and eventually flooded underwater. For the same money you can buy an Olympus TG-6, not exactly comparable but if I were to take one of the two on a dive trip it would easily be the Olympus, in fact I am probably going to order one.

But I’d happily purchase a hero 7 black for £200-£250. A price drop like that would boost sales nicely in time for Christmas/Thailand dive season.