GoPro Sees Market-Leader ‘Opportunity’ in VR Consumer Goods, CEO Says
GoPro “has an opportunity to be a leader in consumer [virtual reality] VR just as it has been a leader in its current market” of action cameras and professional VR solutions, by “enabling new perspectives that weren't possible before in…
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differentiated forms of capture,” CEO Nicholas Woodman said on an earnings call. “We think that our brand and our reputation translate directly into virtual reality and it's something that we're extremely excited about,” said Woodman, whose company used the NAB Show to showcase its prowess in professional VR content capture. But Woodman openly thanked analysts on the call for not asking questions about GoPro's consumer VR product plans. GoPro’s promised first-half introduction of Karma, its first drone, is one of many 2016 “initiatives” on which “we won’t deliver,” Woodman said Thursday. As late as last week, GoPro thought the Karma's launch was on schedule for June, Woodman said. “However, Karma includes revolutionary features that differentiate it from other drones,” he said. “To give ourselves more time to fine-tune these features, we have made the difficult decision to push Karma's launch to the holidays.” GoPro can’t share any information “about how Karma may or may not evolve as we get closer to launch,” but the company remains “incredibly excited about this product,” Woodman said in Q&A. “The upside to the delay is that it does allow us to launch Karma at a terrific time of the year and we do expect it to benefit from the holidays.” Woodman also gave scarce details on GoPro’s distribution plans for Karma, other than to say he expects Karma will “benefit from our global distribution.” Karma “is very much in line with the types of value proposition that have resonated with consumers so far from GoPro,” he said. “So expect consistency there, but beyond that, we can't share any information about our distribution plans for Karma.”