On the surface, this is just a routine organizational adjustment, but if placed on a longer timeline, it can be seen that GoPro has entered"continuous contraction"state.

This round of layoffs, involving about 145 people, is expected to incur a one-time expense of $11.5 million to $15 million and is planned to be completed by the end of 2026. This is already the third round of layoffs in the past two years: from 4% in 2024, to an expansion to 25%, and now another cut of 23%. The frequent and progressive pace of layoffs essentially indicates that the company has not emerged from its difficulties but is continuously delaying the release of pressure by compressing costs.

The root of the problem lies not in the "layoffs" themselves, but inthe long-term stagnation of growth.

According to its financial performance, in the fiscal year 2025, GoPro's revenue was $652 million, down 19% year-on-year; net profit attributable to the parent company was -$93.487 million, marking the third consecutive year of losses for GoPro, with a cumulative loss of $570 million (approximately RMB 3.894 billion) over three years.

At the same time, camera shipments were about 2 million units, a year-on-year decrease of about 20%, and have been in a state of contraction for several years. Although the company has alleviated profit pressure to some extent through price increases and product structure optimization, it has not changed the trend of declining sales volume.

More noteworthy is the change in its channels. The once highly anticipated DTC business is under pressure, with sales from its own website declining, while the proportion of retail channels has increased to nearly three-quarters. This means that GoPro is relying more on traditional distribution systems, while its direct reach to users is weakening.

From a traffic perspective, this trend is also confirmed. Similarweb data shows that GoPro's official website had about 2.87 million visits in March 2026, and its traffic structure relies heavily on direct access and natural search, with the two accounting for nearly 90% of the total, indicating weak overall growth momentum. In contrast, DJI and Insta360 had about 12.8 million and 4.58 million visits to their respective websites during the same period, clearly leading in both traffic scale and user acquisition capability.

From the product side, the problem is also obvious. Currently, GoPro's revenue still relies heavily on the HERO series, but the upgrades of recent generations are essentially limited to "parameter level" rather than a true product transition.

For example, the iteration of recent HERO models mainly focuses on resolution improvement (such as supporting higher frame rates from 5.3K), battery life optimization, minor adjustments to the anti-shake algorithm (HyperSmooth version upgrade), and minor improvements to sensors. Although these upgrades have made progress in technical indicators, they have relatively limited impact on users' actual experience, and there has been no fundamental change in shooting methods, content presentation forms, or usage scenarios. In other words, it is more like "making the original product better" rather than "giving users a reason to upgrade".

True "hit upgrades" often mean changes in usage logic or content production methods. In comparison, Insta360 has changed the traditional logic of "composing before shooting" through 360° panoramic shooting + post-production free framing; DJI has made sports cameras more widely applicable in scenarios such as Vlog and self-media creation through front and rear dual-screen design, stronger anti-shake capabilities with lower threshold, and imaging algorithms.

In such a competitive environment, GoPro's problem is not the lack of technological progress, but the inability to translate progress into new consumer motivation. When users do not perceive "why they need to upgrade", sales can only rely on price strategies or channel promotion to maintain. In a market cycle where demand weakens and price sensitivity increases, this model of relying on price increases or extending old products is inherently unsustainable.

If we only look at the current data, it is easy to underestimate GoPro's historical position. Ten years ago, GoPro was almost the most typical "category definer" in the consumer electronics industry. It created the action camera market with a small wearable camera.

Around 2015, GoPro was at its absolute peak: its market value exceeded $13 billion, its global market share exceeded 75%, and "GoPro" almost became synonymous with action cameras. It not only sold devices but also defined a content production method. The combination of first-person perspective video (POV) and extreme sports culture made it a standard for early content creators.

But the problem lies precisely here. GoPro locked itself into a single category too early and failed to establish a second growth curve. Whether it was the failure of the drone business or the subsequent promotion of subscription services, neither really changed its reliance on core hardware.

When the market entered maturity, this path dependence began to backfire. On the one hand, the continuous improvement of smartphone imaging capabilities is swallowing up a large number of light usage scenarios; on the other hand, consumption has become more rational, and users' sensitivity to price and performance has significantly increased. And in these two dimensions, GoPro no longer has a clear advantage.

A more direct impact comes from the rise of Chinese brands.

While GoPro chose to maintain its basic market through layoffs and business contraction, DJI and Insta360 seized the new round of demand dividends to rapidly expand their scale and reshape the global action camera industry pattern.

An easily overlooked key fact is that GoPro's decline did not occur during a downward cycle of the industry but was gradually replaced during a period of rapid market expansion.

IDC data shows that in 2025, the global broad-sense action camera market size increased by 72% year-on-year, with the panoramic camera track growing nearly 90%, becoming the core growth engine of the industry; it is expected that by 2030, the global handheld smart imaging device market will maintain an annual compound growth rate of more than 15.9%.

But this round of industry growth has clearly favored Chinese brands.

In terms of shipment volume, the total shipment of global handheld smart imaging devices reached 16.65 million units in 2025, a sharp increase of 83% year-on-year; among them, DJI accounted for 10.4 million units, or 62.4% of the market, ranking first, and Insta360 accounted for 3.4 million units, or 20.4% of the market, closely following, with the two accounting for 82.8% of the global market; while GoPro's shipment volume was about 1.8 million units, with its market share falling to about 9.2% and showing a continuous contraction trend, gradually exiting the first tier of the industry.

The competitive situation in the terminal market is more intuitive. In the Amazon US site's March 2026 sports camera Best Seller top 15 list, Insta360 had 5 products ranking 2nd, 5th, 7th, 11th, and 14th, and DJI had 4 products ranking 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 10th; while GoPro only had two products, Hero13 Black (1st) and Hero12 (15th), barely making the list, and could only maintain product popularity relying on its North American customer base, with its full category coverage ability being comprehensively suppressed by the Chinese duo.

In the high-end market and niche tracks, the performance of the Chinese duo is also eye-catching. The top two in single product sales were Insta360 X5 ($549.99) and DJI Action 6 ($399), with Chinese brands successfully dominating the high-end market; in the thumbnail camera niche track, DJI Osmo Nano had a market share of 68.2% in the fourth quarter of 2025, and its market share in China further rose to 69.0% in the first quarter of 2026, with Insta360 GO 3S's search purchase rate reaching 5.90%, becoming the user's preferred device for lightweight shooting.

The rise of DJI and Insta360 is mainly due to the triple core barriers of technology, ecology, and cost-effectiveness: DJI relies on its own mature drone imaging technology accumulation, and its Action 6's hardware parameters are comprehensively leading the industry, with a full range of ecological accessories design greatly reducing user costs; Insta360 is deeply engaged in the panoramic track, with core technologies such as AI automatic editing and invisible selfie sticks precisely solving users' shooting pain points, and its product matrix comprehensively covers high, medium, and low prices to meet different user needs.

Against this background, GoPro's structural problems are further amplified: it is difficult to compete directly with DJI in terms of cost-effectiveness and comprehensive performance, and it lags behind Insta360 in panoramic technology, AI applications, and form innovation. Its traditional brand and hardware advantages continue to weaken, and new differentiated capabilities have not yet formed.

In the face of pressure, GoPro is also trying to fight back. The management hopes to turn the tables on the new generation of GP3 self-developed processor and flagship models, attempting to return to the high-end market through imaging performance upgrades and setting a revenue target of $750 million to $800 million for 2026, striving to approach break-even. But the problem is that such iterations are still concentrated on the hardware parameter level, while the current core of industry competition has shifted from "hardware performance" to "content efficiency, ecological experience, and scenario coverage".

When users' purchasing decisions are no longer driven solely by parameters, relying solely on single product technological upgrades to leverage growth space is relatively limited.

GoPro's rise and fall reflects the core laws of consumer electronics going overseas: the first-mover advantage of category pioneers is not a permanent barrier, and technological routes, scenario innovation, and supply chain efficiency jointly determine long-term competitiveness. For cross-border sellers, only by closely following the changes in user demand and continuously building differentiated product strength and ecological capabilities can they seize the initiative of growth in inventory competition and avoid falling into the predicament of passive contraction.