GoPro to exit drone industry, but will continue supporting it


gopro-karma

GoPro has announced that it will exit drone industry as it plans to sell its remaining inventory of Karma drones, but will continue supporting it. The move comes from the constant downfall of the company in the past few years. The company back in March has laid off 270 employees in response to weak sales.

Once the company sells its Karma drones, there will 300 layoffs including some executives and it announced its decision to exit drone market in its Q4 results. The company expects revenue to be approximately $340 million for the fourth quarter of 2017. The revenue also includes a negative impact of approximately $80 million for price protection on HERO6 Black, HERO5 Black and HERO5 Session cameras, as well as the Karma drone.

The company ended its fourth quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $247 million, up $50 million over the third quarter of 2017. However, the company claims that the sales of HERO6 Black camera performed as expected during the fourth quarter and it lowered the price of HERO6 Black from $499 to $399.

Furthermore, the company is also looking for options to sell its company if there are options. The exit of Karma segment indicates that it has been a costly experiment for the company. Nick Woodman; GoPro CEO and Founder said that he is cutting his annual pay to $1. He also said that he is open to selling the company.

In an interview to CNNMoney, he said:

If there was an opportunity to merge GoPro with a larger parent company that could help us scale our business and provide a better return on investment we would welcome the opportunity to explore such an opportunity.