What’s next for GoPro?

A few years ago, a start-up called GoPro carved out a highgrowth niche in the stagnant camera market with its Hero action cameras. Sales surged until 2015 but started sliding after GoPro — and a growing number of rivals — seemingly saturated the specialty market.

Today’s action-camera makers face two challenges. First, smartphone cameras are good enough for many mainstream consumers, calling into question the need for stand-alone ac- tion cameras. Second, intense price competition and hardware commoditization are driving prices down. To counter those headwinds, manufacturers are developing next-generation cameras for capturing 360degree content. These “niche within a niche” devices include Samsung ’s Gear 360, Ricoh’s Theta, Kodak’s PixPro SP360 and GoPro’s upcoming Fusion.

Research firm Global Market Insights expects the global action camera market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of more than 22% between 2016 and 2023 — so companies such as GoPro could still have room to run.