GoPro at Oppenheimer Conference: Expanding Markets and Subscription Growth

On Tuesday, 12 August 2025, GoPro (NASDAQ:GPRO) presented its strategic plans at the Oppenheimer 28th Annual Technology, Internet & Communications Conference. The company outlined its ambitions to expand its market reach and enhance its subscription model. While GoPro aims to leverage its brand and technology for growth, it also faces challenges in maintaining profitability and exploring new revenue streams.

Key Takeaways

• GoPro plans to enter new product categories, including low-light prosumer cameras and technology-enabled motorcycle helmets.
• The company’s subscription service shows strong retention rates, with 80% of subscribers remaining for three to four years.
• GoPro is exploring monetization opportunities through AI model training using its cloud data.
• Strategic partnerships, such as with AGV for motorcycle helmets, are key to GoPro’s expansion strategy.
• GoPro is prioritizing revenue growth and profitability, with plans to repurchase debt before considering stock buybacks.

Market Overview and Growth Strategy

• Action Camera Market: GoPro remains a leader in the U.S. market, with the global market estimated at 3 million units.
• 360 Camera Market: Estimated at 2 million units globally, with GoPro holding a 10% market share. The upcoming Max 2 launch aims to increase this share.
• Low-Light Prosumer Cameras: GoPro plans to enter this 2 million-plus unit market in 2026.
• Technology-Enabled Motorcycle Helmets: This represents a $3 billion global market, with GoPro collaborating with AGV to leverage its imaging technology.

Subscription Service Performance and Strategy

• Attach Rate: The subscription attach rate has increased to 56%, with even the lowest-priced camera achieving a 25% rate.
• Retention Rate: 80% of subscribers stay for three to four years, consistent across camera models.
• Future Plans: GoPro plans to launch software experiences in 2026 to drive subscription growth independently of hardware sales.
• Unlimited Cloud Storage: Available at no additional cost for users with multiple GoPros.
• AI Model Training: GoPro is exploring revenue opportunities by allowing third parties to use its cloud data for AI training.

Capital Allocation

• Priorities: Focus on growing revenue and maintaining profitability. The company plans to repurchase debt before considering stock buybacks.
• Financial Covenant: A new $50 million financing agreement includes a $40 million EBITDA covenant for 2026.

Future Outlook

• Product Roadmap: The Max 2 camera launch is expected later this year, with profitability anticipated in Q4 2025. The low-light prosumer space entry and motorcycle helmet updates are planned for 2026.
• Strategic Partnerships: Collaborations, such as with AGV, are crucial for differentiating GoPro in new markets.

For a detailed understanding, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript.

Full transcript - Oppenheimer 28th Annual Technology, Internet & Communications Conference:

Martin: Hello, everyone. Welcome to our virtual fireside chat with GoPro at Oppenheimer’s twenty eighth technology Internet and communications conference. Today, we have the pleasure to host the CEO of GoPro, Nick Woodman, and the CFO, Brian McGee. Thank you, and welcome to our conference. Before we start, Brian would like to make a forward looking statement.

Brian McGee, CFO, GoPro: Martin. Yeah. Before we get started, I’d like to remind everyone that our remarks today may include forward looking statements. Forward looking statements and all other statements that are not historical facts are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. Additionally, any forward looking statements made today are based on assumptions as of today.

This means that results could change at any time. And our commentary about business results and outlook is based on the information available as of today’s date. We do not undertake any obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. Information concerning the company’s risk factors is available on its most recent annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended 12/31/2024 and our most recent form 10 q, which was filed yesterday with the SEC and is updated in future filings. With that, I turn it back to you, Martin.

Martin: Thanks, Ryan. I would like to start the conversation with a more general overview of the market. Nick, what’s your current read on the size and growth trajectory of the action camera market over the next three to five years?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Well, the action camera market today we estimate to be around 3,000,000 units globally. We are The U. S. Leader in that market. And we also participate in the three sixty camera market, which we estimate to be approximately 2,000,000 units globally.

And we’ve started to participate in that again earlier this year with the reboot of our MAX camera, which we shared on our earnings call yesterday. We’ve recouped about 10% market share with that product. And we’re launching our Max two camera later this year, which we believe will help us recoup even more share and help grow unit growth and profitability and lead to profitability in the fourth quarter of this year as we shared. And then another important area in an adjacent product category that makes sense for GoPro to play in, but we do not participate today as the higher end low light camera category for vloggers and prosumers and professionals. That’s an exciting opportunity for us to participate in starting next year.

And that’s currently a 2,000,000 plus camera category, again, that we do not participate in today. So in those three categories alone, Action Camera three sixty and ProSumar Low Light, you’ve got 7,000,000 plus units and growing. And we only participate in a 3,000,000 segment of action cameras and we lightly participate with our current MAX three sixty camera. So that’s a significant amount of TAM expansion opportunity for us throughout the rest of this year, again, by more aggressively moving into the three sixty space with Max two and then entering the low light prosumer space next year. In addition to that, we are moving into technology enabled motorcycle helmets, which we think is a no brainer market for incorporating technology that motorcyclists are already using today, whether it’s GoPros attached to their helmet or communicators attached to their helmets so they can communicate with other riders in their ride group or listen to music or send and receive calls, what have you.

We see those technologies collapsing into a helmet both for improved safety, performance, and overall value. That that’s just a market where GoPro is already very strong, and it makes sense for us to leverage our imaging technology and software expertise to differentiate and potentially disrupt in that market. And as we’ve shared, that has a SAM of approximately $3,000,000,000 globally. So there’s a lot of TAM expanding opportunities for GoPro in the near, mid, and long term that we’re very excited about.

Martin: That makes sense. And then among those new opportunities, the 2,000,000 units on three sixty camera, 2,000,000 prosumer and then 3,000,000,000 motorcycle helmet, is there any international markets you will call out that represent the biggest growth opportunity for you in the next few years?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Well, I’ll let Brian add, but this is a global opportunity for us. And we’re excited to partner with other brands where possible to help us realize the full extent of the opportunity as quickly as possible and as authentic a manner as possible, which is why in the area of motorcycle helmets, we chose to partner with AGV who is the GoPro, if you will, motorcycle helmets renowned for their fit performance worn by MotoGP championship winning MotoGP riders. It’s just the creme de la creme of motorcycle helmets. And we recognize that it would make a lot of sense for GoPro to partner there for the not only the authenticity, but also just the quality of product, the design, the fit and consumer confidence that this was going to be a really high quality product. So that’s an example of how we’re attacking many new growth opportunities, but where possible, we’re doing it in the most efficient and effective manner that we can so that we can run as many multiple new product programs as possible in parallel.

I would add that what we’ve shared publicly is not the extent of our product roadmap. It’s not the extent of our opportunity to launch new products into new markets and expand our TAM. That roadmap is quite extensive. What we’ve shared publicly is the near term products that we intend to launch and do so in profitable manner with an adherence to the OpEx targets that we have that we believe are going to enable GoPro not only to grow our top line over the next couple of years, but our profitability in a meaningful way as well.

Martin: I want to move on to three sixty camera. You recently discussed some of the software updates on three sixty video editing capabilities ahead of the Max two launch. So do you find software taking a more important role in the three sixty camera category?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Absolutely. I mean, software is taking a more important role in all of our camera categories insofar as making it easier for our customers to make use of the content that they’re capturing. That’s why the GoPro subscription has been so successful with our cameras auto offloading any new content you capture to the cloud. You can do all your editing in the cloud. You can share directly from the cloud.

You never even have to download your content onto your phone or computer. The software features that make that all the more seamless and less time consuming for subscribers and non subscribers alike is incredibly important very much so in in three sixty cameras because the majority of content creation and sharing is not three sixty. Right? It’s a subset of the entire three sixty image that’s being incorporated into a traditional video or shared as a clip socially. And helping people achieve those, you know, identify the best framing of their three sixty content and apply their desired effects in the most convenient way possible is a huge part of the value add.

And that’s just in consumer. Then when you think about three sixty cameras being used for real estate or construction or other industries, that is a software experience that the hardware makes it possible to capture. But then the software half of the experience is what really allows an end user to make use of that content. So software will be increasingly important. And it’s important to remember that by and large, the software experiences that we’re working on to expand the utility of our hardware products will tie back into subscription.

Not necessarily only the GoPro subscription because for certain markets they’re going to have different enough needs that they would we would offer them a different subscription. But software in general from GoPro for the most part will tie back into subscription, which is proven to be a very successful part of our business.

Martin: And how do you plan to communicate that point on software to the potential customers who may be new to three sixty or who are using other three sixty cameras?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Well, the software experience is marketed as one with the hardware experience depending on your audience. So there’s not a big delineation between marketing the capabilities of the camera between hardware and software. It’s just about the overall experience. So when somebody is learning about, say, Max two from a consumer perspective, what’s done in hardware, what’s done in software is almost irrelevant. It’s more about marketing the overall value proposition to the end user because at this point, the software experience is such a significant arguably more than half of the overall product experience.

So the the marketing thereof is is just unibody, if you will, with the hardware.

Martin: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And then when when it comes to other new products like the low light per presumer camera you highlighted and a tech enabled motorcycle helmet, when should we expect revenues to come to GoPro? And how competitive are those markets currently?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Competitive. Again, that’s why we’ve chosen to partner with AGV because in general, the motorcycle helmet industry is made up of fantastic brands that are building fantastic products. There’s not an enormous amount of tech incorporated in motorcycle helmet industry. That was made very clear to us when we researched the opportunity and built our business case in the first place. And that’s very exciting, right?

Because therein lies GoPro’s opportunity to be a tech enabler in that industry. And we recognize that AGV has a lot to gain by working with us. And we have a lot to gain by working with them. And we hope together to move the industry forward and to play a leadership role in that. But that is a competitive industry.

But we feel like our go to market strategy and partnership with AGV is a smart one. And I can’t share with you well, I’m not going to share with you when revenue when when when we’ll give you revenue estimates for that. But what I can share is starting next year, we’ll start to update investors with more substantial tangible updates on our motorcycle helmet program that I think will get everybody very excited. And then in the category of low light prosumer cameras, very competitive space. However, we believe that we’ve got some unique differentiating opportunities where we’re going to be delivering a lot of value in a unique GoPro way to consumers that’s going to allow us to participate in that market in a meaningful way and over the long term grow market share that you would expect from GoPro.

But most importantly, think for investors is just to know that that category of digital imaging is growing quickly. We are not participating in it at all. And so that represents a lot of low hanging fruit for the company starting in 2026.

Martin: Another topic on new products and new innovation. We’re starting to see more emerging content created, for example, smart cameras or cameras on smart glasses. And how do you evolve your portfolio of hardware and software to ensure that you stay relevant as new form factors and new use cases emerge?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Yes. The consumer interest in digital imaging continues to grow. That’s good for us, creates a lot of opportunities. One of the principles of our business strategy is to build solutions, not things, to build tools, not toys. And we’re more and more focused on utility and need as opposed to building products for entertainment.

A number of our customers use GoPros for training professional use cases, whether it’s content creation or R and D of other product developments, whether it’s used in in Rocket Labs or in other engineering exercises where they want to document. And and a GoPro is the easiest way to deploy small rugged mountable go anywhere, capture anything camera. The more that we can build tools, not toys, the more that we can focus on utility in consumer, but also beyond consumer. That’s a real opportunity for us to continue to diversify, grow into new markets, differentiate, leverage our expertise to camera enable experiences or products that otherwise weren’t camera enabled before. There’s a lot of opportunity there as the world becomes more and more open to embedded cameras, content capture, and utilization thereof.

So what I would say is diversification, diversification, diversification is how we protect GoPro over the long term against the potential for mainstream adoption of convenient cameras that help you capture, say, like your point of view, like a a pair of glasses. It’s important for investors to remember that while that’s compelling, that’s only one of the very many ways that a GoPro is used. And then additionally, for quite some time, we expect GoPro to have a performance and quality advantage over much smaller form factor, albeit very convenient, but limited in in quality, capability and versatility solutions. Diversification, utility and versatility super, super important to our business strategy going forward.

Martin: And then when you, you know, when you think about when do you choose to make a decision to break into new categories, what do you need to see first?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Well, sometimes we benefit from seeing other businesses growing and seeing consumer adoption. It’s been a while since we’ve actually had that opportunity because previously GoPro was always the first mover into some new product categories. We were establishing the market. It was all our marketing, all our product innovation, all of our advertising to drive awareness. We’re seeing the opportunity, whether it’s in three sixty or in low light prosumer as an example, where there’s clear growth and there’s clear opportunity for us to leverage our technology and our brand, our global distribution to participate in that growth.

So that’s kind of a no brainer. There’s other areas, again, like motorcycle helmets where we’re the first to identify, hey, this makes sense. And so we go and we do our research and we interview potential customers, existing customers, participants in the category, resellers of product, and potential partners like AGV to make sure that other people see this same opportunity that we do. And if we get enough of a positive feedback loop that reinforces like, hey, this is a no brainer. And if it fits in with our our budgets to go pursue and we believe that we are ready to commit in a manner that is just that committed for the long term, then we’re all in.

And that’s the case with motorcycle helmets. So right now in the business, it’s a nice balance of clear and viable opportunity through available market data growth categories. And the other side of the scale of a little bit more venture minded products that we think, given all of our years of experience, have a very high probability of success.

Martin: That makes sense. In between the hardware innovation, software features and subscription services growth strategy, how do you prioritize between those? Which one would you put at a higher priority than the other? And what’s the balancing act in between?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Sorry. The subscription opportunities and what was the first?

Martin: Yeah. The first is hardware innovation and then software features and then subscription services, how you’re balancing all three in your growth strategy.

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Yeah. They’re they go hand in hand. It’s rare that I can’t even remember the last time honestly that we reviewed a hardware opportunity that didn’t have subscription tied to it primarily because to really create a fulsome product experience as a solution, you have to have software be equal parts to the hardware in terms of the solution. And then that organically creates a subscription opportunity. So, yeah, it’s interesting.

I haven’t been asked that question, but I think it’s a great question because what it does is just highlights the fact that in today’s in today’s world of hardware product development, you’re going to be hard pressed to not find a software component that’s organically expanding the the capability and value of that hardware experience. And then then the question is, well, does it make sense to charge for that? That’s the software side to that experience. Is it can you do so authentically and not upset the end user who feels like, hey, I should be getting this for free. And that’s where being in the content creation management, editing, leveraging of content business for a purpose, there’s a lot going on there that I think in consumer end user minds really warrants a subscription component, which I think is why you’re seeing GoPro subscription do so well as it relates to attach rate and retention because because it’s real value and the and the end user recognizes that.

Brian McGee, CFO, GoPro: Mhmm. Yeah. You know, I’d add, Martin, on that front. You know, we’ve seen retention rates are obviously improve over the years. Right?

So people are staying in it at the, you know, year three or four, eighty percent are staying in. And then the tax rates have moved from, you know, low forties now up to 56%. And part of that is we’ve also made a lot of quality improvements in the product. The app quality enhancement has led to better reviews and ratings. We’ve had a lot better success rate in iOS and improvements there, which are getting us better ratings.

The combined grid feature providing a lot more contextual, like, cloud backups, and they’re and they’re working and it’s upselling. And as a result, we’re starting to see kind of an upward trend actually in media unit engagement, which means the frequency of use is actually starting to improve as well. So it’s an integral part of what we do as a solution, the hardware, software plus the subscription, they all really go together.

Martin: I want to double down on subscriber growth here. So how do you think about the key drivers for subscriber growth longer term? Maybe we can get you going to more specific breakdown of the key components such as pricing, new hardware sales, user churn, and software features are more.

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Yeah. Well, unit growth today, camera sales, hardware sales are really the the primary driver of of new subscriber acquisition. Right? And then that combined with better retention can yield growth. And retention comes in the form of, as Brian just mentioned, ever improving software experience, be it convenience, speed to completion of whatever your task is, reliability, and so forth.

And that’s something that we continue to invest in. And we’ve got a very, I believe, well thought through software roadmap that is targeting the things that really matter most to improving retention. I mean, retention’s already pretty darn good. But always we’re, you know, if you’d ask us a year or two or three years ago, we would have said it’s pretty darn good, but we keep investing in, we keep improving the retention. And frankly, kudos to the team.

It’s remarkable and we expect it to continue to improve. In the future, starting in 2026, we’re going to be launching some software experiences that we believe have the potential to drive subscribers in manner that’s decoupled from a hardware sale. Helping existing camera owners and even subscribers get more out of their experience with an additional subscription that’s that’s that’s what I can say is really tailored to a specific interest of theirs. And as well, the software experience can really position any of the GoPros that we sell as a tool for them as a must have device at the hardware level for for their activity, but then they they really need the the software experience side of it to to to to get the most out of it. And then we’re we’re going to be targeting additional software experiences that can help expand the TAM for any given hardware, any given camera that we sell today.

I’d say, like, real estate and construction is another example of that, say, the three sixty market. That’s something that we can and will do a much better job of in the near future. So those are three examples of software, both expanding the appeal of our hardware, the utility of our hardware, while also potentially driving subscription growth amongst existing hardware owners, not just new customers who come into our ecosystem.

Martin: Got it. So we’ll be watching for a big software feature update or feature addition come 2026.

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Yes. Next year should be interesting on that front.

Martin: And when you think about the customers of a different hour, you have a lower priced camera, you have the flagship and then you have the the Max three sixty cameras. What are the different customers responding to subscription? Do they have different behavior in attach rates, in retention, if any?

Brian McGee, CFO, GoPro: Yeah. Martin, that’s a good question. The even on the lowest end of our our cameras at one ninety nine HERO, we see about a 25% attach rate, and they follow the same profile of retention. That says that, you know, the bulk of what we sell is, you know, HERO 13, its flagship, and that has a a higher retention rate. So we blend out, you know, into the into the mid fifties now.

But we’re we’re seeing it across all cameras. More more on the more expensive ones because I think people may have more disposable, you know, income to to invest there. But that that’s one of the the things that’s really nice is it’s not just tied to one camera. It’s it’s across the whole breadth of what we offer to the consumers. They’re all participating and staying in it about the same rate.

So that’s a that that’s a really encouraging, and that’s a trend that’s continued over the last year or so. So it’s not a, oh, it’s a one off kind of fluke. It’s very, very consistent.

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: Yeah. And just one more thing I’d like to add as I was listening to Brian and I realized that I don’t think we’ve ever really made this clear to investors, but owners of multiple GoPros have one subscription. So if you buy a second or a third GoPro for a different perspective or a different use case, that all ties into your existing GoPro subscription at no additional cost. And so that really also helps with the engagement and stickiness and the retention So I think it’s just a good point to make.

Martin: That makes sense. The unlimited cloud storage is very appealing, especially when you have multiple. Mhmm. And then the user churn, when I think about, you know, why or when they churn, you know, what are the common reasons? How do you plan to improve the retention?

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: There are a handful of software feature related deficiencies or things people want to see that could should work better, faster, more conveniently. I won’t divulge those for competitive reasons, but we’re actively investing and improving that part of the experience to address that. And then outside of that, it’s largely that an end user just doesn’t use their GoPro enough. And they don’t see the value of paying $50 a year for something that they’re making use of. And so that’s another reason, one of many why we’re very much focused on improving the utility, the tool like aspects of our hardware and software experience and target more people who can use and or need a GoPro to be more successful in whatever activity or profession or use case that they might be thinking about using a GoPro for.

Right? Tools, not toys. Then then that means that over time, we can increase the importance, the value proposition of our hardware and software products to the end users that we sell to and which we believe should have a positive impact on retention over time as well.

Martin: And another question on subscription. In the most recent results, you highlighted a very significant improvement in the subscription attach rate. What changed? Or what are the changes you did you implement that resulted in such an improvement?

Brian McGee, CFO, GoPro: Yeah. Martin, I kinda touched on this a bit before. We’ve made a lot of improvements, enhancements in the app. We’re getting better reviews, ratings, iOS, upload success rate has improved a lot, and that we did about a year ago. Some of the combined grid features providing more contextual cloud backup upsells, and so people are using it more, Camera’s a hub as well as, you know, uploading from their phone.

And and, again, the we’re seeing an increased use and frequency of the camera, which is a nice result. And so I think all that I think you’re seeing more core users coming in as well to to the company and to to our products. And I think all that is laddering up to a much more improved attach rate. And like I said before, it’s gone from, you know, low forties to now, you know, hit 50, basically, two quarters in a row and now 56. So it’s definitely a an upward trend.

We’re also seeing we must be doing more in the app too because we’re seeing a lot of people who have would have downloaded the app and maybe they didn’t get the subscription after they bought their camera at retail. We’re seeing a lot more coming through gopher.com as well. So that’s also been a nice, you know, improvement from a margin perspective for sure because we we garner the full benefit of of the sale. But we’re definitely seeing more coming through gopro.com, and that’s an encouraging sign as well.

Martin: That makes sense. Another thing that jumped out at me in recent quarters is you highlight this AI model training opportunity. Maybe can you give us more context for the program that enable subscribers to monetize their content via the AI model training for other people. And maybe, generally talk about how you come up with such an idea, how do you prepare to help subscribers and potential AI companies to understand what GoPro has to offer.

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: They were down to three and a half, four minutes. So I’m going to give an uncharacteristically quick answer. Yeah. We we got pulled into this opportunity by conversations that were initiated by other big tech firms that wanted access to our customers’ cloud data lake of video content for AI training. So this opportunity came to us.

This wasn’t something that we thought up, which was very cool. And so when we dug in and built a business case for it, we determined that of course this has to be opt in. And with over thirteen million hours of content in the cloud that is bang on what a number of AI technology companies, the type of content that they’re looking to access for AI training. That’s a pretty significant opportunity, not just for GoPro, but for our subscribers. So we’re really excited about this.

I would say stay tuned. As we’ve shared, we’re inviting some of our biggest users into the program to help us kick it off, to help us learn about it and then to provide case studies for other tech firms to understand how successful it can be for them. So we’re excited. So more on that soon. Brian, anything to add?

Brian McGee, CFO, GoPro: I think the TAM is quite big and it’s growing fast, 1,300,000,000.0. We think from industry research and growing at about 20%. So as we resume growth, start growing you know, units, revenue, and just you just get more content going into the cloud. I think we’ll also see an increase in content in the cloud as we, you know, put out new three sixty products. There’ll be much more content that will be generated in the cloud.

And then as we do some of the other offerings in 2026, it’s just gonna feed into this flywheel of, you know, camera sales, camera usage, get content in the cloud, cloud editing, and then this AI model. So it’s a it’s a great opportunity for us to also improve retention, quite frankly, with subscribers, and they get the benefit 50% on whatever they whatever is used.

Martin: And last one is maybe putting a last question on capital allocation. Once you paid off your convertible later this year and when you’re entering a year of growth and profitability, how do you evaluate a priority in capital allocation? You know, where does that buyback sits in the pecking order?

Brian McGee, CFO, GoPro: Yeah. Well, let’s just say the first priority is to continue to grow revenue and stay profitable. That’s I think the most important. And then we’ll evaluate, I think, growth opportunities as part of that while staying within a reasonable OpEx envelope as we’ve talked about. And just given the structure, I’d probably repurchase debt before I would buy stock, but that’s we’ll go figure that out once we have the money.

And if you look at it from a 26 perspective, you know, in the financing agreement we just did for the new $50,000,000 raise, it has a, you know, 40,000,000 covenant for EBITDA. So we feel, you know, good about being able to make that number in ’26, and we’re excited to get back into into growth mode, profitability, and having the free cash flow, quite frankly, the to make those fun choices.

Martin: Mhmm.

Nick Woodman, CEO, GoPro: It’s it’s time. Well, it’s time and it’s time, I guess.

Martin: I see no further question from the audience. Thank you again for your time and insight today, and I wish you all have a good rest of the day. Thank you.

Brian McGee, CFO, GoPro: Thanks, Martin. Thanks for having us. Thank you.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.