GoPro Cancels Foray Into Aerial Drone Market

GoPro finally said goodbye to their Karma drone project.
The action camera company, GoPro, announced its aerial photography drone, Karma, back in 2015. The Karma was not known for being particularly functional, and it would often drop to the ground disastrously, causing damage to the drone and to the things it landed on. GoPro has recently been suffering a number of setbacks, and this latest cut comes after the company laid off hundreds of employees. It is not surprising that the majority of the employees who were laid off worked on the drone project.
GoPro is known across the world for its action cameras, as their cameras were used to film numerous extreme sports videos. This marketing strategy was quite smart, but ultimately unsustainable, so the company’s losses were expected. GoPro was expecting big things from Karma, hoping to compete with the cheaper alternatives like Xiaomi, a company that also produced actions cams. They hoped to compete with Xiaomi and similar companies by providing customers with aerial photography drones, even though DJI and other major companies have a firm grip on that market already.
Nobody should have been surprised to see Karma fail given the circumstances.
GoPro isn’t doing too well financially, and now even Nicholas Woodman, the company’s CEO, has had to cut his salary down to a dollar. With all these cutbacks to employees and the CEO, on top of the failed projects, GoPro’s future is uncertain.
Via: Gizmodo