When it rains, it pours—GoPro, the "pioneer of action cameras," is on the verge of collapse.
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AI made storage chips more expensive. The first to cry out in pain was not the smartphone giants, nor the auto makers, but the long-ailing GoPro.
On Monday, GoPro submitted an 8-K filing to the SEC, stating that there is "substantial doubt" about the company's ability to continue as a going concern, and expects to update its financial statements.
In other words, the pioneer of action cameras has officially written "whether it can survive" into its documents.
The market reacted swiftly: GoPro's stock price fell by as much as 14% on Monday. By Monday afternoon, the company was valued at about $190 million. Compared to its peak of more than $12 billion, even reaching $13 billion after listing in 2014, it’s almost a different world.
But what broke GoPro wasn’t just a round of storage chip price hikes. It had been standing at the edge of a cliff for a long time. The AI boom only brought a colder wind.
Storage chip price hikes became the last straw
GoPro’s latest troubles start with a storage chip.
As AI data center construction accelerates, global storage supply is squeezed. More capacity is diverted to higher-margin AI server chips, making supply for consumer electronics tighter.
GoPro happened to collide with this.
Last month, the company disclosed that storage component costs had seen “unprecedented increases and volatility." How big is the hike? GoPro says storage prices rose 80% to 115%.
This is fatal to a camera company.
Action cameras aren’t software. You can’t offset costs by writing more code. Storage chip price increases directly impact material costs. Either raise prices and sacrifice sales, or keep prices unchanged and sacrifice profits.
GoPro finds it hard either way.
According to Bloomberg, GoPro learned in April from suppliers that they plan to reduce storage supply. This weakened the company’s sales expectations, meaning higher investment costs, weaker profit margins, and less pricing power.
Already deep in trouble
The most eye-catching line in this 8-K filing:
"Substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern."
GoPro also said that if default or cross-default clauses were triggered and outstanding debt became due, the company expects not to have enough liquidity to fulfill its obligations.
This is a squeeze from debt, cash flow, supply chain, and demand, all at once.
In the first quarter of this year, GoPro’s revenue fell 26%. Previously, the company had received waivers from lenders for violating loan covenants. It also expects to not meet several future loan covenants.
The company has begun seeking a way out.
It has hired advisers to evaluate strategic options, including a potential sale or merger. It is also seeking financing to avoid default. In prior disclosures, GoPro said it was exploring new markets and products in defense and aerospace.
At the same time, it plans to lay off about 23% of its global workforce.
Over twenty years ago, it defined a lifestyle
The beginning of GoPro’s story is quite romantic.
Over twenty years ago, Nick Woodman was a surfing enthusiast on California beaches. Using rubber bands and wrist straps, he fixed a Kodak camera to his wrist, just wanting to capture himself surfing.
This makeshift device later became GoPro.
It defined the action camera.
Compact. Waterproof. Durable. Capable of first-person-shooting.
Surfing, skiing, skydiving, cycling, motorcycling, reality shows—almost all "thrilling" moments could be recorded by this tiny camera.
“Be a Hero” wasn’t just an ad slogan.
It gave ordinary people an illusion:
You didn’t have to be an athlete, but you could film yourself like a hero.
GoPro was good at storytelling, too.
It encouraged users to upload videos. Sponsored extreme athletes. Ran a YouTube channel. By leveraging user-generated content, it bound itself with adventure, freedom, and extremes.
By the time it went public in 2014, GoPro was already synonymous with action cameras. Data showed it once held over 75% of the global action camera market.
That year, Nick Woodman rang the bell on Nasdaq.
The capital market applauded.
GoPro stock jumped 30% on IPO day. Later, the company’s valuation surged toward $13 billion. For a time, it was one of Wall Street’s favorite consumer electronics stories.
The problem: it tried to tell a different company story
After listing, GoPro faced its first big problem:
Was it a hardware company or a content media company?
A hardware company is valued by profit margin, sales, and product cycle.
A content platform is valued by user growth, ad monetization, and network effects.
Nick Woodman chose to tell the latter story.
In IPO filings and presentations, GoPro stressed it was not a camera company, but a content media company. It had a huge amount of user-generated content, the GoPro Channel, video editing software, and anticipated future ad and copyright revenues that could surpass hardware.
The story was appealing.
But hard to realize.
On a phone, photos can be retouched, edited and shared instantly.
With GoPro, it’s different.
The files are large. Exporting is cumbersome. Editing is demanding. Sharing is long-chain.
Many users’ footage sits in storage cards after shooting. It's hard for people to turn every ski trip, bike ride, or dive into a blockbuster.
The so-called content platform exists, but is hard to monetize.
Even worse: when the company focused its resources and attention on the content dream, camera innovation slowed.
Products kept updating, specs improved.
But it became increasingly difficult for consumers to perceive decisive differences.
GoPro kept telling the "hero" story, while users began to ask:
How is this new device different from the last one?
DJI and Insta360 rewrote the rules of the game
Many say GoPro lost to Chinese companies in a price war.
This view is too simplistic.
The real change is—the game’s rules were rewritten.
GoPro excelled at ruggedness, waterproofing, stabilization, ultra wide angle. It perfected these, long holding onto the core awareness for action cameras.
But DJI and Insta360 didn’t just make “cheaper GoPros.”
They pushed user demands forward a step.
DJI launched the Osmo Action, bringing imaging, stabilization, and battery management expertise from drones into action cameras. Front screen preview hit the Vlog user needs, while stabilization and image quality rivaled GoPro's flagship.
Insta360 took another path.
It bet on panoramic cameras.
Capture everything in 360 degrees first, then choose the angle in post-processing. Users don’t have to frame shots up front—just shoot, then decide how to tell the story.
Combined with AI editing, ordinary people can more easily make cinematic short films.
This changed shooting behavior.
GoPro still asks users to “aim at the target.”
Insta360 lets users “just shoot first.”
Behind DJI and Insta360 is the speed of the Shenzhen supply chain.
GoPro releases one new product a year, with limited change. DJI and Insta360 iterate faster, efficiently designing, prototyping, testing, and mass-producing.
Market share quickly gave the verdict.
Data shows DJI and Insta360 together now account for 79% of the global market, while GoPro has only 18%.
The former over-75% dominant force is now ranked third.
Even heroes can fall from the mountain
GoPro taught the market one thing:
People don’t just want to record life; they want to make it look like an adventure.
It captured the spirit of its era.
But was also trapped by it.
The AI boom that drove up storage chip prices is just the latest cold wind. What truly brought GoPro to its current state are years of operational pressure, strategic missteps, slowed product innovation, and DJI/Insta360 rewriting the rules of competition.
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