Report: Chinese company Xiaomi may purchase GoPro

?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx5zdf-bG4c

Spent/waster $1B to buy Gopro when China is very good at for:

Cars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydhdQ8m9j7Y

Even "Fake Apple Store"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJHlj6vAgkg

Enjoy...

3 months agopermalink

zodiacfml

I saw this headline a few days back and dismissed it immediately. Xiaomi might, if the price is right. However, there is no technology in GoPro that Xiaomi can make use off.
The only wild thing I can think about this is Xiaomi to use GoPro's brand to rebrand almost all Xiaomi products to the US.

3 months agopermalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6ICDepWqw4

... and other small Chinese companies just make counterfeit Gopro as part of "Chinese Fake -Trillion Dollar Business", and below is just one example:

3 months ago*permalink

In terms of Fake and Counterfeit, below are two examples, and take a look, and I think people will understand China more:

Fake food in Chine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cgSIH8uuV8

" Counterfeit" cities in China:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO6A7G1TwOI

Copy, Counterfeit, Fake... Does everyone understand now how China become #2 GDP in the world?

3 months ago*permalink

Ranger Danger

Mike FL Japan was doing exactly the same not so long ago before evolving to create their own unique technology and brands. We're seeing China go through a similar transition now, look at DJI as a great example of this. Also their enormous population probably has a much larger effect on their GDP ranking. America has been busy protecting redundant and unprofitable industries while China has been working it's butt off, they're playing the long game and will eventually be #1. It's unavoidable but the current US policies being put in place will probably hasten this change of position.

3 months ago*permalink

maximme

yup
Dont pay more than U$1.25 for the whole company.
I am sure there are some bad debts somewhere.

3 months agopermalink

etsetse

xiaomi will never pay one billion for this...........

3 months agopermalink

It does not mater too much to the Gopro CEO Nick Woodman as he already dumped ALL his stock option long time ago:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GPRO/holders?p=GPRO

3 months agopermalink

GabrielZ

This seems like a potentially good fit. As was said in the report, I hope they would continue to make quality GoPro action-cams. But at more competitive prices. Xiaomi I assume has scale of manufacture to make this possible. GoPro actioncams at a good price could rule the roost again in that niche...as long as the quality is held up.

3 months agopermalink

Mark K

I just bought my first action cam...Yi 4K made by Xiaomi. Comparing to GoPro...I believe it is years behind in terms of all aspects..
Nevertheless have been a fan of Xiaomi's phone accessories..most of them are of high quality. The fall of GoPro has nothing to do with current CEO...forgive my ignorance but simply as a result of fierce competitive world producing extreme cheap GoPro clones and one of these is made by Xiaomi. GoPro has never let us down.

3 months agopermalink

FWIW, Yi 4K has nothing to do with Xiaomi 4K as Yi and Xiaomi are two different company/brand.

Here is one of the Xiaomi 4K for example:
https://www.amazon.com/Xiaomi-Camera-Action-Global-Version/dp/B0784G75GX

BTW, if you buy Xiaomi 4K here in the US, most of the time, you will get a counterfeit.

3 months ago*permalink

Xiaomi makes living by copying other US name brand products, but has its own name MI or Xiaomi ext. Other Chinese companies makes living by:
- counterfeit US name brand, or even Chinese well known name brand, or
- have misleading brand.

That's how Chinese companies work as always.

3 months agopermalink

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000

So does Huawei for example:

"Huawei Admits Copying Code From Cisco in Router Software"

Above just one of many cases what Huawei did as always.

3 months agopermalink

Peiasdf

@Mike FL
That's an article from 15 years ago

3 months agopermalink

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-17/huawei-zte-targeted-as-security-ban-advances-at-u-s-fcc

@Peiasdf, So they changed now? I dot thing so. Since they did not change anything, We just cut it to the roots. Below just an example as the start:

3 months agopermalink

Vince VC

Yi is one of xiaomi arm...

3 months agopermalink

Peiasdf

@Mike FL
The US is targeting Huawei and ZTE not because they copied American product but because they are out innovating American companies so they are targeted to prevent them from setting the 5G standard

3 months agopermalink

xmeda

Good, hope they won't try to ressurect horrible Karma, but maybe they can develop some usable drone as competitor to DJI Spark/Mavic.

3 months ago*permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA7Ag2iZRvs

Xiaomi has every products we can think about, Drone is just one of them:

3 months agopermalink

noflashplease

Xiaomi already has a better product line than GoPro, so they're really just paying for a brand. I don't see any value in GoPro's domestic engineering or management. Actually, that remaining domestic workforce is a liability in terms of severance benefits. It strikes me that the Xiaomi has determined that the costs of building a credible, and pronounceable, global brand are greater than the cost of buying out floundering GoPro. They may be right, but extracting $1 billion in value from the hollow GoPro brand require a major product line expansion, to conventional cameras and smartphones, both of which Xiaomi currently sells.

It all makes sense, although with the current political climate, regulatory approval is far from assured. GoPro was never a "Made in America" company, but a clever marketing play with a (poor?) implementation of the global supply chain.

3 months agopermalink

Judy Stone

It's funny to read people concluding that because GoPro (a very small company run by an incompetent CEO) failed and will be bought by a Chinese company, then China is the world leader. Boeing, Apple, Microsoft, Lockheed, Raytheon,Intel, and the list goes on and on...the US is light years ahead of China and the world.

3 months agopermalink

It's funny to read your concluding to comparing "GoPro (a very small company run by an incompetent CEO) failed" against best of the best US large "world [leading corps] Boeing, Apple, Microsoft, Lockheed, Raytheon,Intel,".

Funny.

3 months ago*permalink

Skyscape

@ Judy Stone, it's even more funny reading your comments. So Woodman is incompetent, right? And while I agree with you in your conclusion about big US companies being leaders in the world in technology, saying that the GoPro CEO is incompetent makes you look silly. It was him that brought GoPro to its original success. Was he slow to react to competition and market evolution? I would think so. But I won't say that Woodman is incompetent. This incompetent person will walk away a multimillionaire many times over. A lot of people wouldn't mind having that incompetence.

3 months agopermalink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lei_Jun

Happy ending, and better than downing to toilet ruined by current CEO Nick Woodman.

As far as I can see Xiaomi's CEO is more sophisticate and much smarter than current GoPro CEO.

Take a look:

3 months ago*permalink

"The U.S. debt to China is $1.17 trillion as of January 2018. That's 19 percent of the $6.26 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries. The rest of the $21 trillion national debt is owned by either the American people or by the U.S. government itself. "

GoPro is just loose change to China.

3 months agopermalink

cosinaphile

indeed , coins in the couch cushions

3 months agopermalink

Jon Stern

You're making a common mistake of collapsing any Chinese-based entity with China as a nation.

Xiaomi is a private company, not an arm of the Chinese government. While it's true that the division between companies and the government in many cases can get a little blurred, I don't believe that Xiaomi gets to dip in to the Chinese central bank and take any of the $1.17T.

3 months agopermalink

cosinaphile

the wealth of a nation, from the level of the state to the level of the corporation is a blurry amorphous mess both in the usa and both chinas, taiwan and mainland

the state protects and serves corporations much better than its citizens , both in the east and the west.. corporate welfare outstrips any relief given to citizens in the usa , and im sure some equivalent system also serves the better managed and run chinese firms

banks everywhere take the money they have and spread it around in the typical capitalist manner and all the interests , both "private" and "state " all feed at the the same troughs

3 months ago*permalink

BobT3218

Jon Stern
You may believe that but I don't. China is a Communist country and proud of it.

3 months agopermalink

Revenant

China really isn't a communist country in the traditional sense anymore. It's really a strange hybrid of authoritarian, central planning and a capitalistic market economy. I'd call it communism-on-paper.

3 months agopermalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOsgh5kcgQ

+1 for "I'd call it communism-on-paper." or the Chinese communism party "did a very very bad job of teaching you communism" as the HBO said to the "Exiled Chinese Billionaire". Take a look:

3 months agopermalink

taktak91

There is no company in China that has absolutely no ties to the Chinese government. All companies there have some ties to the government or to the Communist Party that oversees the government. One has to remember that even the country's constitution is beneath the decree of the Party.

3 months ago*permalink

"The Party" and "the Party Central" are very different. In China many join just to be able to climb to higher places, not just in politics. The Party has a few dozen million members but many aren't really tied down in politics than they are in office politics. To be able to get something big done in China, bribing and befriending Party members is inevitable, but that doesn't mean yielding to political demands or some control of the company. The Party Central doesn't pay attention to most companies and individuals usually don't make those sort of demands.

3 months agopermalink

Jon Stern

BobT3218 China has 647 billionaires (as of last year). That's 100 more than the USA.

I take it you've not worked with Chinese companies, nor traveled there and seen the personal wealth on display in the major cities.

I've spent quite a lot of time there. I find people are just looking to make money, and mostly ignore the politics. I've been to shopping malls that look just like high-end malls in the US and Europe, full of people weighed down with bags from brand stores.

As others have said. China is no longer a Communist country. It's a one-party state that suppresses political dissent, and violates many human rights, but it's not communism as Karl Marx would have thought it.

I think a new word is required to describe the Chinese system. Maybe in the future they'll call it Xiocracy, even though Xi didn't create the modern Chinese system.

3 months agopermalink

utomo99

Why the price is so high ? I think it is too high

3 months agopermalink

Remember your president Donald Trump imposed 25% Tariff?

3 months agopermalink

BostonC

All the GoPro cams are made in China by Foxconn anyway. The days of leveraging cheap Chinese manufacturing are over.

3 months agopermalink

zakk9

"The days of leveraging cheap Chinese manufacturing are over."

Correct. In the future, there will mostly be Chinese brands, manufactured in China. Three of the world's five most sold mobile phone brands are already Chinese, Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi. It won't stop there.

3 months agopermalink

Foxconn makes .... your iPhone ... your GoPro ... your soldiers helmets ... clothing ... materials ... everything that is sold in the U.S. are Made-in-China ... China owns America ... thru purchase of bonds ...

3 months agopermalink

Miike Dougherty

Foxconn is Taiwanese with lots of manufacturing in China. The governments of each country though don't like each other yet they're good business partners. It's complicated.

3 months agopermalink

zakk9

No, it's not complicated. They're all Chinese. Forget about the politics, the Chinese are very pragmatic. If there's a chance to do business, they'll live in peace, and they mostly do.

3 months agopermalink

The Taiwanese government isn't playing smart these days and Foxconn is looking into better infrastructure support by moving more production to mainland China. They're treading carefully at the moment but they may flip when it makes business sense. Taiwan is a small island after all and it doesn't have many cards to play.

3 months agopermalink

timbazi

China #1!

3 months agopermalink

tonyreidsma

".... but the company's market capitalization has since fallen to about $761 million, mainly due to aggressive competition from China."

It's not mostly due to China. The CEO is a fool, and the company was run poorly.

3 months ago*permalink

Right, China can run GoPro better ...

3 months agopermalink

Corkcampbell

They're just buying the name as their own offerings are better. But, it's probably a good move, depending on the price.

3 months agopermalink

Own offerings? The Xiaomi subsidiary YI?? Their action cam is a bargain but the ILC they released is a horrible ripoff of Leica T. It never took off, not globally not domestically.

3 months agopermalink

Nigel S

Yi has nothing to do with Xiaomi, except that Xiaomi sold Yi's first action camera as the "Xiaomi Yi", since then there has been no link.

Look at the Xiaomi Mijia Mini - fantastic value for money at a sensible price to sell large numbers.

3 months agopermalink

BackToTheBasics

I think the time of action cameras for regular people are over for all manufacturers. Only extreme sport athletes will keep buying them. People bought action cameras when they saw cool videos on youtube and thought they will make as cool videos if they had the same camera to only realize that only action they had in their lives was on tv when watching a friday night movie. Smartphones are a lot more practical to use and very few actually shoot real action or underwater where Gopro is needed. Action cameras are yesterdays news and drones are the next big thing. All the people who bought Gopros are now getting drones instead only to realize that they don't actually shoot anything interesting with them either and the drone will end up next to their Gopro collecting dust.

3 months agopermalink

Tog-meister

This is a perfect real world metaphor of what happens when you rest on your laurels and don't respond to what consumers really want. Kodak redux.
DSLR makers that don't respond with competitive new offerings may find themselves in the same boat within 2 years. It will be all the same news, just with different names. "xxx, once boasting a 100 year history of making some of the finest SLRs on the planet and a famous lense line-up, has seen it's stock price fall to 1/100th of it's former glory. It now is being bought out by YYY. "

3 months agopermalink

caterpillar

Actually, no. There is a use for a rugged action cam. I've been using sjcam since their ver 4000. That was about 4 years ago if I am not mistaken. It cost only U$70. And it did the same things that the gopro then but cost U$300-400. They still sell that sj-4000 but now at U$50. And now there are so many other models to choose from. Even the Yi is too expensive for some of their models vs sjcam.

Action cams that can go underwater, is a big thing that we used it a bit. Prior to this, I had to buy a U$400 lumix underwater cam.

The problem with GoPro is - they overcharged customers. Once people wizened up, their market share shrunk. They were just living in their hype and hoping people don't get to know how much their cameras really cost. Reminds me of Croc shoes that cost U$40-70 when I can get the same thing for U$4-5 from a no-name brand!

3 months agopermalink

RED i

> Only extreme sport athletes will keep buying them.

You do realize that's millions of people around the world not including grassroots/hobby race car drivers and motorbike riders. I see tons of people on bikes and stake boards here with action cams, before that especially at skate parks I saw them with SLR's The footage I get from my Sony FDR X3000 at 1080 60p is quite nice and I got it for recording trails as I hike them instead of a couple of EM10's and lenses. The IS on that thing is quite good.

Who in their mind would put a $600-1000 phone on top of their helmet when a $50-200 action cam with weather sealing will do a way better job.

3 months ago*permalink

huyzer

RED i
I totally love my two Sony FDR-X3000. Freakin' stabilization (optical) is beautiful!

3 months agopermalink

Roadrunner123

I wouldn't ride my scooter without one.

3 months agopermalink

caterpillar

We bought the cheaper sjcam-4000 to use for outdoors, shallow water swimming. Later, I used it as a dashcam. When I finally got an E-motorcycle, I put one in my helmet when I ride it.

There are so many uses for these small devices. If you don't use one or have no imagination to see its uses, then it's your loss.

I am watching the prices and waiting for the 4k versions to go down in price. It's about U$200 for a good 4k one. I think it's dipped that amount now. If it is around U$120-140, I might consider getting one. But it won't be the GoPro brand.

3 months agopermalink

Sony FTW! People who choose GoPro mostly weren't even looking.

3 months agopermalink

sportyaccordy

@RED i hit the nail on the head. I use my cheapo 4K Chinese action cam for track days and vlogging my workouts. I am actually editing a video now. I looked for something from the conventional camera makers and either found nothing or found stuff that was way too expensive. I'd gladly have paid ~200-300 for something small and rugged with a ~17-28mm equivalent zoom, but no such compact exists and ILCs are too expensive/delicate. There are a lot of active people who would love a good rugged ultrawide but camera makers are too insolent to captitalize.

*EDIT* Just saw the specs on the FDR X3000.... I will see how my Git2 does this riding season; that looks like a very nice and viable option

3 months ago*permalink

chrisno

bye Nick Woodman

3 months agopermalink

fuxicek

Great news, the GoPro will be cheaper and better...Since dawn of smartphones, I was never complete happy with my cheap smartphones, until I met Xiaomi...I went from Samsung to HTC to Sony to Huawei to Xiaomi and when the last one was stolen, for the first time I bought the same brand again, their price/value ratio is just unbeatable, so far I'm happy owner of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4x, I bought for 200 EUR a year ago, nothing in this price range had 64gb internal memory, 4gb ram, vr ready (gyroscope), 5.5 inch full hd display, 4000mah battery.....

3 months agopermalink

Edgar_in_Indy

Very tempting, but unfortunately that phone probably won't work with U.S. carriers. Do you know if there's anything similar that would work with Verizon?

3 months agopermalink

Corkcampbell

How you can say that without knowing what frequency(ies) it uses?

3 months agopermalink

Edgar_in_Indy

@Corkcampbell, I just spent 20 minutes reading about it on various sites, and the consensus seems to be that it won't work at all on my carrier Verizon. Did you have anything useful to ad to the conversation?

3 months agopermalink

tkbslc

Xioami (Yi) action cams are not much cheaper.

As for phones, you can by similar Chinese phones from BLU, an American company that imports and rebrands phones from China with US connectivity and warranty.

3 months agopermalink

Devendra Deshpande

@Edgar_in_Indy the other Xiaomi's ought to work (Mi 4/5/6 or Mix 1/2/s). They all have terrific support for bands. More costly than Redmi series, but a lot cheaper than Samsung/Sony.

3 months agopermalink

Chayagrahak

Jobs jobs jobs... all going out! Anyways, Gopro cameras already losing market with affordable 360 cameras made by mainstream brands like Samsung and LG. Less than 2 year old Gopros go for 1/3rd of its original price in the used market. Afterall market for Gopro is dead after all the innovative add on gears to smartphones and even the smartphone camera. Also, all those who wanted to have one, already bought one and haven't seen anyone upgrading to the next model. Pretty saturated market.

3 months agopermalink

tkbslc

I just bought one. I also bought a 360 cam last year, but the images and videos are too difficult and annoying to edit and share.

3 months agopermalink

CaPi

Buying well known brands like volvo..
And selling them as local products.
Lets see what politics make of that.
If they make it out at all

3 months agopermalink

Xiaomi (little grain) is looking to add actioncams

to compete with

Xiaoyi (little ant) which now dominates actioncams

both have global access
including sourcing sensors from others: Sony, Samsung, etc

but both naturally start selling within China market first
and ROW (rest of world) only if demand exists
they don't "need" other markets, but happy to add them, if demand can justify it

3 months ago*permalink

BacktotheFuji

I thought Yi was the brand name that Xiaomi gives to its action cam / dash cam / security cam products?

3 months agopermalink

Yi is brand from YiTech / XiaoYi
4k action cams, 4k dcams, (Yi M1), etc
they are based in Shanghai, China

Mi is brand from XiaoMi
smartphones, tablets, laptops, 4k laser projectors, etc
they are based farther north, Beijing, China

both have factories in other provinces, like southern China, etc
like Guangdong (small province)
has ~100,000,000+ people (big sustainable market: ~8% of China)
plenty of mfg capacity

3 months ago*permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZMhnpU9wvU

XiaoMi has factory in India too for taking advantage of CHEAPER Indian labor cost:

Per GDP Per capital, Chinese is 500% higher/richer than Indian, So the Chinese labor cost is MUCH high than Indian.

3 months ago*permalink

the key here
is Chinese factories in India are aimed rightly at India's market

exporting to other markets is bonus, not mandatory

Indians often own multiple smartphones, in their daily lives, allowing for separation of personal life from business

they are by far more multi-sim (switch phone centric) than those in North America

unfortunately, USA has never been open Chinese folks (born American) in general, so, letting Chinese have factories in USA, is a rare exception

so, when USA wants access to Chinese markets, they only do so for outsourcing labor.

when USA want to set up factories to sell to Chinese market, they forget they barred China from just that for over a hundred years

so, it's a stalemate. like-for-like restrictions

3 months agopermalink

"Indians often own multiple smartphones, in their daily lives", but Chinese own more phones, take a look, and count how many phones this Chinese own:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOsgh5kcgQ

3 months agopermalink

i'm talking about working active phones per individual

not some youtube anecdote of an exception

3 months agopermalink

BacktotheFuji

Crikey, seems that a lot of resellers have confused the brands, hence my confusion. A number of the Chinese sites even use the mi logo in the yi camera promotional material :o

3 months agopermalink

Chinese labor isn't 5x as expensive as Indian, you should take the median instead of the mean for these comparisons.

3 months agopermalink