GoPro Hires Investment Bank to Explore Future Options as Camera Sales Decline

GoPro has hired investment bank Houlihan Lokey to help explore what comes next for the company, according to a company disclosure published May 13. The board has authorized a formal review of options, which could include selling the company or merging with another business. This marks a turning point for GoPro, the maker of rugged action cameras, as it deals with falling sales and mounting losses.

The move comes after GoPro reported difficult results for the first three months of 2026. The company lost $81 million—or $0.50 per share—during that period. Sales dropped significantly. Cameras sold through traditional retail stores fell 35 percent compared to the same period last year, down to $61 million. Sales through GoPro's own website dropped 6 percent to $38 million.

Shifting Away from Consumer Cameras

GoPro is trying to move beyond just selling action cameras to consumers. The company recently launched cameras called the MISSION 1 Series aimed at professionals and large organizations—think government agencies, defense contractors, or film studios—where customers are willing to pay more and buy in larger quantities.

During the company's earnings discussion, CEO Nicholas Woodman mentioned opportunities in defense and aerospace. This signals that GoPro sees a future selling to industries where cameras need to be extremely reliable, tough, and specialized. These industries also tend to stick with the same products longer and have more predictable spending patterns than regular consumers do.

This shift reflects a hard lesson from GoPro's history. The company grew rapidly in the 2010s riding a wave of consumer interest in action cameras. But as phone cameras became better and better, fewer people felt they needed a dedicated action camera. That market has matured and stopped growing. Professional customers, by contrast, have different needs that smartphones cannot meet—and they will pay premium prices to get exactly what they require.

The Core Problem

The 35 percent drop in retail sales points to a real structural problem for GoPro's original business. As smartphone cameras have improved, fewer casual users buy dedicated action cameras anymore. The people who still do buy them are a limited group: serious hobbyists and professionals. This is a much smaller market than before.

The fact that direct online sales fell only 6 percent while retail plummeted 35 percent tells us something useful. GoPro's most loyal customers—the ones who seek out the brand on purpose—are still buying. But there are not enough of them to make up for the retail decline. GoPro cannot grow its way out of this problem by only selling more to its committed fans.

The broader context here is that we have seen this pattern before when camera and computing companies hit a wall in their core market. When smartphones became powerful, they eliminated the need for standalone digital cameras, GPS devices, and other specialized gadgets. Palm, a company that made handheld organizers, faced something similar in the 2000s when smartphones took over. In the end, HP bought Palm. GoPro's choice to look for strategic options now, rather than wait and hope, is worth noting as a sign that the company sees the shift coming.

Looking at Possible Paths Forward

Houlihan Lokey is one of the major investment banks that handles sales and mergers of technology companies. Their involvement suggests GoPro is seriously exploring options rather than just going through the motions.

Who might buy GoPro. Larger consumer electronics companies might want to add an action camera brand to their product lines. Companies that sell enterprise technology—software or hardware to businesses—might want to add specialized cameras to what they offer. Because GoPro is now positioning itself for defense and aerospace, contractors in those sectors could also be interested buyers.

The timing matters. GoPro is losing money right now, which makes its situation urgent. But the company still has valuable assets: a trusted brand that people recognize, relationships with retailers and distributors, and engineers who know how to build tough cameras. These assets are worth something—but the longer GoPro waits, the more those advantages could fade as competition increases and the market situation potentially gets worse.

What This Tells Us

The action camera market has shrunk and consolidated over the past five years. Chinese manufacturers have taken most of the market for cheap action cameras. Smartphones have captured many of the casual use cases. What is left is a smaller, more specialized market of professionals and dedicated enthusiasts.

The challenge for GoPro is that this remaining market may not be big enough to support a company of its size with public shareholders expecting growth. Selling cameras to defense and aerospace customers could help, but those industries move slowly—deals take months or years to close, not weeks.

GoPro's situation illustrates a broader reality about hardware companies. To stay independent and profitable, they need to either compete on sheer scale and low cost, maintain premium pricing through constant innovation, or find new markets where their expertise matters. The question now is whether GoPro can do that on its own, or whether it makes more sense to become part of a larger company. The answer will come from this strategic review.