Is Xiaomi About To Buy GoPro?

Potential sale could save GoPro

There are reports emerging of iconic action cam manufacturer, GoPro could be sold off to Chinese tech giant XIaomi. This isn’t really much of a surprise considering GoPro’s struggling sales in the market as of late. Despite it still being the dominant player in the action camera market especially with the likes of its GoPro Hero 6, their revenues are still tumbling, fast. At the height of its powers GoPro was worth an estimated USD 10 billion but now their market capitilisation is only at around USD 700 million. How the mighty have fallen.

This is pretty much due to the increase in competition in the market especially with more and more affordable action cameras popping up in recent years, well most notably from Xiaomi themselves. To add more salt to their wounds, they had to shut down their drone business back in January after its Karma drone failed to meet expectations.

GoPro cameras, while still the undisputed top dog in the industry with unrivaled specs and performances, are a tad bit on the pricey side for the average consumer. Also you could say that they are the victim of their own game as the sturdy build quality of the GoPro cameras are too good that consumers are less likely to change their cameras because the damn thing still works!

The Information also reports that action cam manufacturer is looking to sell for USD 1 billion based on how much HP paid for another struggling tech company Palm and that CEO Nick Woodman has said that he is open to such a deal. The report also states that Xiaomi is indeed interested in buying the action camera manufacturer but does not want to overpay.

Apparently DJI was also approached as a potential buyer but reportedly turned the offer as they saw no value in the company. Ouch.

There is still nothing concrete regarding this so take it with a pinch of salt. It will be interesting to see whether Xiaomi will indeed buy GoPro. Will it lead to more affordable GoPro cameras? What will happen to Xiaomi’s own Yi Technology branded action cameras? So many questions..