GoPro, on the other hand, has been pretty vocal about selling the company. In January this year, GoPro called quits from the drone business and CEO Nick Woodman openly said in an Interview that he is open to selling the company. He was quoted as follows, “If there was an opportunity to merge GoPro with a larger parent company,” said Woodman, “that could help us scale our business and provide a better return on investment […] we would welcome the opportunity to explore such an opportunity.” The news of the offer has caused a sharp spike in the GoPro stocks which jumped by 8.8 percent. That being said, Xiaomi is treading carefully as it doesn’t want to pay excessively for the company. Furthermore, the Information says that GoPro is likely to be valued as high as $1-Billion. The trouble started brewing in GoPro after the company’s revenue dropped drastically last year. The revenue plunge was a direct function of the decreasing demands for the action cameras. In order to counter this GoPro slashed the prices of the Hero5 and the Hero6 Black. The company also rejigged its pricing strategy to attract more customers. GoPro shut down its Karma drone division and attributed the same to “an extremely competitive aerial market” mixed with a “hostile regulatory environment.” Xiaomi, on the other hand, has its own action camera lineup. Xiaomi recently launched the Mi Action camera that supports 4K recording. It will be interesting to see if this deal goes through, if it does happen we hope that Xiaomi uses GoPro’s expertise for upcoming products.
