GoPro Executives Discuss Performance, Innovation At Piper Jaffray Conference

GoPro Inc GPRO President Tony Bates and CFO Jack Lazar discussed the success and future plans of the camera company at Piper Jaffray's annual Consumer Conference on Wednesday.

A Good Year So Far

When asked about the firm's strong Q1 performance, Bates attributed the positive figures to new products, GoPro's strong brand and global expansion to markets such as China. He emphasized the fact that GoPro has emerged as one of the top five by-unit camera sellers in the United States even though it only produces five unique models.

Nevertheless, Bates highlighted room for improvement, particularly in continuing to expand distribution channels and making the brand more accessible to non-male consumers.

In discussing GoPro's global outreach, Bates and Lazar focused on the brand's foray into China, which began earlier this year. According to Bates, both the content and the products produced by the company have "resonated very well" with Chinese consumers so far. He said that the country's large emerging youth consumer base has made a joint online and offline marketing strategy the most effective approach. While this strategy has been generally successful, Bates still thinks GoPro has to focus on localizing video content in new markets.

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Upcoming Innovation

In addition to talking about the company's global growth and earnings, the execs took some time to lay out GoPro's ongoing projects.

They highlighted a recently announced 360-degree stereoscopic camera, which is being developed with Google, before transitioning to GoPro's heavily-discussed experimentation in virtual reality. According to Bates, perfecting a 360-degree capture mechanism will be a crucial first step in its development of virtual reality. Once that stage is completed, he said, they will work to create technology that allows for seamless display of that 360-degree virtual video. Bates did not offer many details on the progress of the virtual reality project.

But Bates did talk about GoPro's prospects in the drone market. He is optimistic, although many analysts believe that GoPro will play a small role in the emerging drone industry. According to Bates, the primary consumer interest in drone technology is for photo and video capture. Therefore, although other companies might develop drones with better tracking or agricultural capabilities, Bates believes that GoPro is best-positioned to penetrate the casual consumer market.

Lastly, the execs talked about a new login feature that will be equipped to all GoPro cameras. Lazar said it would help them aggregate better customer data. Both he and Bates highlighted a lack of sufficient data as a problem for the company, which has sold only 15 million units in its history.

GoPro stock recently traded down more than 1 percent on the day, possibly in response to reports of softening demand for the company's products. However, this does not concern Bates, who said that he and his team remain confident in GoPro's long-term strategy.