---
title: "GoPro Will Crush in the Drone Market"
description: "That is, if they do what they already do best."
date: "2015-12-28"
modified: "2015-12-28"
authors:
  - name: "Michael Frank"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/michael-frank"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/tech/1465/gopro-will-crush-in-the-drone-market"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "Drones"
  - "GoPro"
---

# GoPro Will Crush in the Drone Market

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/gettyimages-458104118.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

We’ve seen this movie before: a tiny company looks at a segment that’s not being fully exploited and blows it apart. A decade ago, that company was [GoPro](<https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/gpro>), the segment action cameras. Since then, GoPro has gone from nothing to a $2.5 billion market cap. Yes, the firm has [taken its lumps of late](<https://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/28/gopro-shares-slide-after-earnings-miss.html>), especially from a shareholder perspective, where it’s gone from $65 per share $18. But as GoPro looks to the future, it’s eyeing the drone market and rubbing its hands with excitement. Salvation may soon come.

Over the past year, GoPro has been [spending on smaller companies to acquire software](<https://gopro.com/news/lets-get-sphericalspherical-gopro-acquires-virtual-reality-start-up-kolor>) capable of creating automated editing for its cameras. That means bouncing footage from your GoPro; feeding it into a smartphone app; adding music and a title sequence; and, *voila*, posting it on social media, all without a minute spent tethered to a laptop. GoPro’s also [gobbled up smaller outfits](<https://www.articlebasis.com/stock-news-2/gopro-inc-nasdaqgpro-boosts-its-drones-efforts-with-skybotix-acquisition-45186.html>) that have experimented with automated drone flight by using sensors, ensuring your expensive toy doesn’t bounce into a tree. Both innovations are key to GoPro’s success, in selling more action cams and selling flying cameras. The brand already has huge name recognition, so it could put a flying robot on Best Buy shelves tomorrow and do just fine.

The FAA estimates as many as [400,000 drones sold this holiday season](<https://www.voanews.com/content/faa-prepares-for-christmas-surge-in-drone-registration/3116728.html>). But drones are still relatively expensive and easy to crash; the public is wary of winding up on the local news crashing Christmas toys into a neighbor’s living room. [Or worse](<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/faa-drone-report-incidents-mishaps>). All of this suggests there’s a gap between the technology’s promise and delivery, which is precisely what GoPro kills at. The company has just been eying the timing and, perhaps most importantly, waiting to nail a price point competitors can’t touch.

https://youtube.com/embed/JADCZuSOQRU

That moment is here. This October, Qualcomm [announced its Snapdragon Flight Development system](<https://www.qualcomm.com/news/snapdragon/2015/09/10/first-public-demo-snapdragon-flight-robotics-dev-platform-one-worlds>), which the telecom giant says can lower the cost of a $1,200 drone to about $400. While Qualcomm also invested in former *Wired* editor Chris Anderson’s [3-D Robotics drone startup](<https://3drobotics.com/3dr-raises-series-c-funding-smartphone-drones/>), that hardly precludes GoPro from also partnering with Qualcomm. Because the latter, a $74 billion company, won’t only partner with one tech startup if it can own the entire market.

My bet: If GoPro can come up with an easier-to-fly drone that’s inexpensive *and* shoots video (with at least some auto-edit functions), it’ll [blow the market wide open](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/1070/im-a-drone-fanboy-and-you-should-be-too>).

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