Production delays pushed deliveries of GoPro’s new Hero8 cameras into the fourth quarter, leading the company to record weak results for the third quarter, but the drop was lower than what GoPro and the financial community had predicted.
Revenues tumbled by 54.1 percent to $131.2 million, while the gross margin contracted by 10.1 percentage points to 21.7 percent. The American brand of action cameras ended the quarter with a net loss of $74.8 million, as compared to $27.1 million for the same quarter of 2018.
However, the company maintained its full-year guidance, projecting revenue growth of 9 to 12 percent.
Despite the delays, GoPro said the Hero8 Black launch video has become the most viral launch video in its history. Unit sales of the new cameras on GoPro.com eclipsed every previous launch.
The company said it significantly raised its brand awareness online and across social media during the latest quarter. Organic viewership of GoPro content across all channels achieved an all-time high with 234 million, non-paid views, an organic 35 percent increase over its previous record set in the first quarter of 2019. The company’s YouTube channel alone registered a record 178 million views in the quarter, an increase of 83 percent from the year-ago quarter.
The number of active paying subscribers was up by 66 percent to 305,000 and the number of social media followers was 1.2 million higher with a total of more than 42 million people, watching the contents mostly on YouTube and Instagram.
In Europe, GoPro claimed an 80 percent market share in dollars in the category of action cameras priced at $200 and more. In Japan, GoPro market share in units increased from 58 to 60 percent, according to GfK. In the U.S., GoPro’s sales increased by 38 percent for the number of units priced at $300 and above, according to the NPD Group.
