Item 1A. Risk Factors
The risks described in Risk Factors in our 2018 Annual Report, and as supplemented below, could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. We do not believe any of the updates below constitute material changes from the risk factors previously disclosed in our 2018 Annual Report. These risk factors do not identify all risks that we face; our operations could also be affected by factors that are not presently known to us or that we currently consider to be immaterial to our operations. In that event, the trading price of our shares may decline, and you may lose part or all of your investment.
Risks related to our business and industry
We may not be able to achieve revenue growth or profitability in the future.
Our historical results should not be considered as indicative of our future performance. For example, our annual revenue grew rapidly from
$985.7 million
in 2013 to
$1.62 billion
in 2015 and then declined to
$1.148 billion
,
$1.180 billion
and
$1.185 billion
in
2018
,
2017
and
2016
, respectively. In future periods, we could continue to experience declines in revenue, or revenue could grow more slowly than we expect, which could have a material negative effect on our future operating results.
In addition, we incurred substantial operating losses of
$20.3 million
and
$74.7 million
for the first quarters of
2019
and
2018
, respectively. We also incurred a substantial operating loss of
$94.0 million
,
$163.5 million
and
$373.0 million
for the full year
2018
,
2017
and
2016
, respectively, as compared to operating income of
$54.7 million
for
2015
. Lower levels of revenue or higher levels of operating expense in future periods may result in additional losses or limited profitability. In the first quarter of 2018, we implemented a company-wide restructuring of our business resulting in a reduction in our global workforce and the elimination of certain open positions, consolidation of certain leased office facilities, as well as the elimination of several high-cost initiatives, including the closure of our aerial products business, in order to focus our resources on our core camera, cloud and software, and services businesses. We previously implemented company-wide restructurings in the first and fourth quarters of 2016, and the first quarter of 2017, in order to focus our resources on our hardware and integrated storytelling solutions, and the consolidation of certain leased office facilities. We may not continue to realize the cost savings expected from these actions. We may continue to incur significant losses in the future for a number of reasons, including other risks described in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and in our 2018 Annual Report, and we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors.
Our future growth depends in part on further penetrating our total addressable market, and we may not be successful in doing so.
Our growth historically has largely been fueled by the adoption of our products by people looking to self-capture images of themselves participating in exciting physical activities. We believe that our future growth depends on continuing to reach and expand our core community of users, followers and fans, and then utilizing that energized community as brand ambassadors to an extended community. We believe that in order to expand our market, we must provide both innovative and easy-to-use products, as well as intuitive and simple software tools that enable effortless sharing of content, with the smartphone central to the GoPro experience. While we believe our
subscription services will increase our total addressable market, we cannot be certain that these efforts will be successful. We may not be able to expand our market through this strategy on a timely basis, or at all, and we may not be successful in providing tools that our users adopt or believe are easy to use.
We plan to further build upon our integrated storytelling solutions, such as our Quik mobile application, HERO7 line of cameras and GoPro Plus subscription solution in future periods, and our investments in this solution, including marketing and advertising expenses, may not successfully drive increased sales of our products and our users may not adopt our new offerings. If we are not successful in broadening our user base to reach more of our core customers with our integrated solutions, our future revenue growth will be negatively affected, and we may not recognize benefits from our investments in the various components of our storytelling solutions, and the marketing, sales and advertising costs to promote our solution.
Our growth also depends on expanding our market with capture perspectives, including spherical, which is a resource-intensive initiative in a highly competitive market. While we are investing resources, including in software development, sales and marketing, to reach these expanded and new consumer markets, we cannot be assured that we will be successful in doing so. If we are not successful in penetrating additional markets, we might not be able to grow our revenue and we may not recognize benefits from our investment in new areas. For example, we made significant investments in the aerial market, but decided in the first quarter of 2018 to close our aerial business in light of difficult market and regulatory conditions, and margin challenges.
To remain competitive and stimulate consumer demand, we must effectively manage product introductions, product transitions, product pricing and marketing.
We believe that we must continually develop and introduce new products, enhance our existing products and effectively stimulate customer demand for new and upgraded products to maintain or increase our revenue.
The success of new product introductions depends on a number of factors including, but not limited to, timely and successful research and development, pricing, market and consumer acceptance, effective forecasting and management of product demand, purchase commitments and inventory levels, availability of products in appropriate quantities to meet anticipated demand, ability to obtain timely and adequate delivery of components for our new products from third-party suppliers, management of any changes in major component suppliers, management of manufacturing and supply costs, management of risks associated with new product production ramp-up issues, and the risk that new products may have quality issues or other defects or bugs in the early stages of introduction. With respect to management and supply costs, we may be impacted by heightened demand for specialty memory, components and batteries that are not supported by our manufacturing partners. Such supply shortages may affect our ability to manage appropriate supply levels of our products and pricing pressures may negatively affect our gross margins.
In addition, the introduction or announcement of new products or product enhancements may shorten the life cycle of our existing products or reduce demand for our current products, thereby offsetting any benefits of successful product introductions and potentially lead to challenges in managing inventory of existing products. For example, in 2017, the introduction of the HERO6 Black camera at $499, while keeping the price point of the HERO5 Black camera at $399, negatively affected consumer demand for HERO5 Black, and we ultimately reduced the price of HERO5 Black to increase channel sell through rates. The HERO5 Black price adjustment had a cascading effect that resulted in price reductions for HERO5 Session and ultimately HERO6 Black cameras. Reduced product margins resulting from lower price point products may decrease the number of retailers willing to offer and promote our product lineup. Failure to manage and complete product transitions effectively or in a timely manner could harm our brand and lead to, among other things, lower revenue, excess prior generation product inventory, or a deficit of new product inventory and reduced profitability. For example, as a result of reducing the price of our HERO5 Black cameras in December 2017 and HERO6 Black cameras in January 2018, we incurred price protection and marketing development funds charges which resulted in a reduction in our revenue, gross margins and operating profits.
Additionally, our brand and product marketing efforts are critical to stimulating consumer demand. We market our products globally through a range of advertising and promotional programs and campaigns, including social media. If we do not successfully market our products or plan the right promotions for the right products at the right
time, the lack of success or increased costs of promotional programs could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We depend on sales of our cameras, mounts and accessories for substantially all of our revenue, and any decrease in the sales or change in sales mix of these products would harm our business.
We expect to derive the substantial majority of our revenue from sales of cameras, mounts and accessories for the foreseeable future. A decline in the price or unit demand for these products, whether due to macroeconomic conditions including variable tariff rates, competition or otherwise, or our inability to increase sales of these products, would harm our business and operating results more seriously than it would if we derived significant revenue from a variety of product lines and services. In particular, a decline in the price or unit demand of our HERO camera line or Fusion camera, or our inability to increase sales of these products, could materially harm our business and operating results. Further, any delays or issues with our new product launches could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
While we have developed and released products and services to add to our offerings, we may not be successful in achieving future revenue growth driven by newly released products and services. For example, we promoted GoPro Plus, our subscription service in connection with our HERO7 camera lineup, to allow consumers to auto upload content to the cloud and make edits with our Quik storytelling solution. If all the components of the storytelling solutions do not work together seamlessly or our users do not adopt them, they may not drive camera sales and our operating results could be adversely affected. In addition, we continue to expend resources to develop a solution for editing and sharing software to deliver and experience spherical content. If the software does not function as expected or users do not adopt our solution, sales of our spherical camera may be negatively affected. We cannot be assured that our investments in the development of software-related products and services will result in either increased revenue or profit. Changes in product mix may harm our financial results. If there is a shift in consumer demand from our higher-priced to lower-priced cameras without a corresponding increase in units sold, our revenues and gross profit could decrease and losses could increase.
As a result, our future growth and financial performance may continue to depend heavily on our ability to develop and sell enhanced versions of our cameras, mounts and accessories. If we fail to deliver product enhancements, new releases or new products and services that appeal to consumers, our future financial condition, operating results and cash flows will be materially affected. Product introductions may not always be successful and could be costly to develop and exit if ultimately unsuccessful. For example, we invested significant resources in development, marketing and support for the launch of our Karma drone, which we subsequently determined faced margin challenges and other obstacles, and we exited the aerial business in 2018.
We rely on third-party suppliers, some of which are sole-source suppliers, to provide components for our products which may lead to supply shortages, long lead times for components, and supply changes, any of which could disrupt our supply chain and may increase our costs.
Our ability to meet customer demand depends, in part, on our ability to obtain timely and adequate delivery of components for our products. All of the components that go into the manufacturing of our cameras and accessories are sourced from third-party suppliers.
Some of the key components used to manufacture our products come from a limited or single source of supply, or by a supplier that could potentially become a competitor. Our contract manufacturers generally purchase these components on our behalf from approved suppliers. We are subject to the risk of shortages and long lead times in the supply of these components and the risk that our suppliers discontinue or modify components used in our products. In addition, the lead times associated with certain components are lengthy and preclude rapid changes in quantities and delivery schedules. We have in the past experienced and may in the future experience component shortages, and the availability of these components may be unpredictable.
If we lose access to components from a particular supplier or experience a significant disruption in the supply of products and components from a current supplier, we may be unable to locate alternative suppliers of comparable quality at an acceptable price, or at all, and our business could be materially and adversely affected. In addition, if we experience a significant increase in demand for our products, our suppliers might not have the capacity or elect not to meet our needs as they allocate components to other customers. Developing suitable alternate sources of supply for these components may be time-consuming, difficult and costly, and we may not be able to
source these components on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all, which may adversely affect our ability to meet our development requirements or to fill our orders in a timely or cost-effective manner. Identifying a suitable supplier is an involved process that requires us to become satisfied with the supplier’s quality control, responsiveness and service, financial stability, labor and other ethical practices, and if we seek to source materials from new suppliers, there can be no assurance that we could do so in a manner that does not disrupt the manufacture and sale of our products.
Our reliance on single source, or a small number of suppliers involves a number of additional risks, including risks related to supplier capacity constraints, price increases, timely delivery, component quality, failure of a key supplier to remain in business and adjust to market conditions, delays in, or the inability to execute on, a supplier roadmap for components and technologies; and natural disasters, fire, acts of terrorism or other catastrophic events.
In particular, for our camera designs, we incorporate image processors, sensors, lens, batteries and memory solutions that critically impact the performance of our products. These components have unique performance profiles, and, as a result, it is not commercially practical to support multiple sources for these components for our products. For example, we incorporate the GP1 image signal processor from Socionext, Inc. in our HERO7 Black and HERO6 Black cameras. We do not currently have alternative suppliers for several key components. In addition, our products also require passive components such as resistors and multi-layer ceramic capacitors which are experiencing supply shortages and lengthening lead-times within the consumer electronics industry and may impact our supply chain. In the event that any of our key suppliers are unable to supply the components that we need to produce our products to meet anticipated customer demand, our business would be materially and adversely affected.
If we are unable to anticipate consumer preferences and successfully develop desirable products and solutions, we may not be able to maintain or increase our revenue and achieve profitability.
Our success depends on our ability to identify and originate product trends as well as to anticipate, gauge and react to changing consumer demands in a timely manner. All of our products are subject to changing consumer preferences that cannot be predicted with certainty and lead times for our products may make it more difficult for us to respond rapidly to new or changing product or consumer preferences. Additionally, our products are discretionary items for consumers subject to changing preferences. The overall market for consumer electronics is highly competitive and consumers may choose to spend their dollars on products or devices offered by our competitors or other consumer electronics companies instead of on GoPro products, which may adversely affect our sales. If we are unable to introduce appealing new products or novel technologies in a timely manner, or our new products or technologies are not accepted or adopted by consumers, our competitors may increase their market share, which could hurt our competitive position
.
Our research and development efforts are complex and require us to incur substantial expenses to support the development of our next generation cameras, editing applications and other new products and services. Our research and development expense was
$167.3 million
,
$229.3 million
and
$358.9 million
for
2018
,
2017
and
2016
, respectively. We expect that our research and development expenses will continue to be substantial in 2019, and increase compared to 2018 as we develop innovative technologies. While we expect research and development to increase year-over-year, our budgets are constrained in 2019 and may require us to forego investment in certain products or features which might have been successful had we invested in them, and we may not choose the right features, products, or services to update or enhance. Unanticipated problems in developing products could also divert substantial resources, which may impair our ability to develop new products and enhancements of existing products, and could further increase our costs. We may not be able to achieve an acceptable return, if any, on our research and development efforts, and our business may be adversely affected. As we continually seek to enhance our products, we will incur additional costs to incorporate new or revised features. We might not be able to, or determine that it is not in our interests to, raise prices to compensate for any additional costs.
We operate in a highly competitive market and the size and resources of some of our competitors may allow them to compete more effectively than we can. New entrants also enter our category from time-to-time. These market factors could result in a loss of our market share and a decrease in our revenue and profitability.
The market for cameras is highly competitive. Further, competition has intensified as new market entrants and existing competitors have introduced new products and more competitive offerings into our markets. Increased competition and changing consumer preferences may result in pricing pressures, reduced profit margins and may impede our ability to continue to increase the sales of our products or cause us to lose market share, any of which could substantially harm our business and results of operations.
We compete against established, well-known camera manufacturers such as Canon Inc. and Nikon Corporation, as well as large, diversified electronics companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Sony Corporation, and specialty companies such as Garmin Ltd., the Ricoh Company, Ltd., Shenzhen Arashi Vision Co., Ltd. and SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. Many of our competitors have substantial market share, diversified product lines, well-established supply and distribution systems, strong worldwide brand recognition and greater financial, marketing, research and development and other resources than we do. Additionally, many of our existing and potential competitors enjoy substantial competitive advantages, such as longer operating histories; the capacity to leverage their sales efforts and marketing expenditures across a broader portfolio of products; broader distribution and established relationships with channel partners or vertically integrated business units; access to larger established customer bases; greater resources to make acquisitions; larger intellectual property portfolios; and the ability to bundle competitive offerings with other products and services. Further, new companies may emerge and offer competitive products directly in our category. We are aware that certain companies have developed cameras designed and packaged to appear similar to our products, which may confuse consumers or distract consumers from purchasing GoPro products.
Moreover, smartphones and tablets with photo and video functionality have significantly displaced the market for traditional cameras, and the makers of those devices also have mobile and other content editing applications and storage for content captured with those devices. Our GoPro and Quik mobile and desktop editing applications and our GoPro Plus service may not be as compelling of a solution as those offered by other companies, such as Apple and Google, although the Quik mobile application supports content from other platforms including content from iOS and Android. Manufacturers of smartphones and tablets, such as Apple, Google and Samsung may continue to design their products for use in a range of conditions, including challenging physical environments and waterproof capabilities, or develop products with features similar to ours.
We depend on key personnel to operate and grow our business. If we are unable to retain, attract and integrate qualified personnel, our ability to develop and successfully grow our business could be harmed.
We believe that our future success is highly dependent on the contributions of our CEO and our executive officers, as well as our ability to attract and retain highly skilled and experienced research and development, sales and marketing and other personnel in the United States and abroad. All of our employees, including our executive officers, are free to terminate their employment relationship with us at any time, and their knowledge of our business and industry may be difficult to replace.
Since March 2016, we have implemented four global reductions-in-force and other restructuring actions to reduce our operating expenses. These changes, and any future changes, in our operations and management team could be disruptive to our operations. Our restructuring actions and any future restructuring actions could have an adverse effect on our business as a result of decreases in employee morale and the failure to meet operational targets due to the loss of employees. If key employees leave, we may not be able to fully integrate new personnel or replicate the prior working relationships, and our operations could suffer.
Qualified individuals are in high demand, and we may incur significant costs to attract and retain them. While we utilize competitive salary, bonus and long-term incentive packages to recruit new employees, many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel also have greater resources than we do. Competition for qualified personnel is particularly intense in the San Francisco Bay Area, where our headquarters are located. We have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. In addition, job candidates and existing
employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. Fluctuations in the price of our Class A common stock may make it more difficult or costly to use equity compensation to motivate, incentivize and retain our employees. For example, during
2018
, our closing stock price ranged from a high of
$7.57
in the first quarter to a low of
$4.04
in the fourth quarter. If we are unable to attract and retain highly skilled personnel, we may not be able to achieve our strategic objectives, and our business, financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected.
If our sales fall below our forecasts, especially during the holiday season, our overall financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Seasonal consumer shopping patterns significantly affect our business. We have traditionally experienced greater revenue in the fourth quarter of each year due to demand related to the holiday season, and in some years, including
2018
, demand associated with the launch of new products heading into the holiday season. Fourth quarter revenue comprised
33%
,
28%
and
46%
of our
2018
,
2017
and
2016
revenue, respectively. Given the strong seasonal nature of our sales, appropriate forecasting is critical to our operations. We anticipate that this seasonal impact is likely to continue and any shortfalls in expected fourth quarter revenue, due to macroeconomic conditions, product release patterns, a decline in the effectiveness of our promotional activities, product mix, charges incurred against new products to support promotional activities, pricing pressures, supply chain disruptions, or for any other reason, could cause our annual results of operations to suffer significantly. In addition, we typically experience lower revenue in the first half of the year. For example, revenue of
$485.0 million
for the first half of 2018 decreased
$179.6 million
, or
27%
, sequentially from
$664.6 million
in the last half of 2017. First half revenue comprised
42%
,
44%
and
34%
of our annual
2018
,
2017
and
2016
revenue, respectively.
In contrast, a substantial portion of our expenses are personnel-related and include salaries, stock-based compensation, benefits and incentive-based compensation plan expenses, which are not seasonal in nature. Accordingly, in the event of revenue shortfalls, we are generally unable to mitigate a negative impact on operating margins in the short term.
Changes to trade policies, tariffs and import/export regulations may have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
The United States and other countries in which our products are produced or sold internationally have imposed and may impose additional quotas, duties, tariffs, or other restrictions or regulations, or may adversely adjust prevailing quota, duty or tariff levels. Countries impose, modify and remove tariffs and other trade restrictions in response to a diverse array of factors, including global and national economic and political conditions, which make it impossible for us to predict future developments regarding tariffs and other trade restrictions. Trade restrictions, including tariffs, quotas, embargoes, safeguards, and customs restrictions, could increase the cost or reduce the supply of products available to us or may require us to modify our supply chain organization or other current business practices, any of which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. We are dependent on international trade agreements and regulations. If the United States were to withdraw from or materially modify certain international trade agreements, our business and operating results could be materially and adversely affected.
We do not have internal manufacturing capabilities and rely on several contract manufacturers, located primarily in China to manufacture our products. Our contract manufacturer locations expose us to risks associated with doing business globally, including risks related to changes in tariffs. Additionally, the current United States administration continues to signal that it may continue to alter trade agreements and terms between China and the United States, including limiting trade with China, imposing additional tariffs on imports from China and potentially imposing other restrictions on exports from China to the United States. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) recently identified certain Chinese imported goods for additional tariffs to address China’s trade policies and practices. GoPro cameras have not been impacted by any of the announced Section 301 tariffs by the USTR. Any announcement by the USTR to impose tariffs on GoPro cameras could have a material adverse effect on our United States bound production, business and results of our United States operations. If these duties are imposed on our cameras, we may be required to raise our prices, which may result in the loss of customers and harm our business and results of operations. We are in the process of shifting most of our United States bound camera production from China to Mexico, which may result in potentially significant material costs and potential disruption to our operations as it may cause us to pursue the time-consuming
processes of recreating a new supply chain, identifying substitute components and establishing new manufacturing locations. We expect to complete this production shift in the first half of 2019. Shifting United States bound camera production to Mexico may not be successful due to timing of implementing these changes, and we may not be successful in reducing our costs, or off-setting the impact of tariffs due to other potential tariffs. Additionally, we may not succeed at lowering potential tariff rates on United States bound production manufactured in Mexico due to the ongoing negotiations and congressional confirmation of the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. Sales of our products in China are material to our business and represent a significant portion of our revenue. This revenue stream from China is at risk in the event China imposes retaliatory tariffs impacting in-bound sales of our cameras.
We face substantial risks related to inventory, purchase commitments and long-lived assets, and we could incur material charges related to these items that adversely affect our operating results.
To ensure adequate inventory supply and meet the demands of our retailers and distributors, we must forecast inventory needs and place orders with our contract manufacturers and component suppliers based on our estimates of future demand for particular products as well as accurately track the level of product inventory in the channel to ensure we are not in an over or under supply situation. To the extent we discontinue the manufacturing and sales of any products or services, we must manage the inventory liquidation, supplier commitments and customer expectations. For example, in 2018, we exited the aerial products business, but still had inventory of our Karma drone, which we sold throughout 2018. Also, in the fourth quarter of 2015, the first quarter of 2016, and the fourth quarter of 2017, we recorded product charges of $57 million, $8 million, and $5 million, respectively, for excess purchase order commitments, excess inventory, and obsolete tooling, relating to the end-of-life of our former entry-level HERO product that was introduced in 2014, slower than anticipated overall demand, and for excess inventory relating to the end-of-life of our REMO accessory.
No assurance can be given that we will not incur additional charges in future periods related to our inventory management or that we will not underestimate or overestimate forecast sales in a future period. Our ability to accurately forecast demand for our products is affected by many factors, including product introductions by us and our competitors, channel inventory levels, unanticipated changes in general market demand, macroeconomic conditions or consumer confidence. If we do not accurately forecast customer demand for our products, we may in future periods be unable to meet consumer, retailer or distributor demand for our products, or may be required to incur higher costs to secure the necessary production capacity and components, and our business and operating results could be adversely affected.
If we fail to manage our operating expenses effectively, our financial performance may continue to suffer.
Our success will depend in part upon our ability to manage our operating expenses, including but not limited to our cash management, effectively. We incurred significant operating losses in
2018
and
2017
and, as of
March 31, 2019
, we had an accumulated deficit of
$593.5 million
. Beginning in March 2016 through the first quarter of 2018, we implemented global reductions-in-force and other restructuring actions to reduce our operating expenses. Although we plan to seek to operate efficiently and to manage our costs effectively, we may not realize the cost savings expected from these actions. Aggregate charges for employee terminations and the timing to recognize these charges and other costs associated with the restructuring, including the estimates of related cash expenditures made in connection with the restructuring, may exceed estimated and disclosed amounts and may not lead to improvements in results of operations at expected levels.
We will need to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, reporting processes and procedures, and financial and business information systems. We are also investing in areas we believe will grow revenue and our operating expenses might increase as a result of these investments. If we are unable to operate efficiently and manage our costs, we may continue to incur significant losses in the future and may not be able to maintain or achieve profitability.
In the future, in response to unfavorable market conditions or consumer demand, we may again need to strategically realign our resources, adjust our product line and/or enact price reductions in order to stimulate demand, and implement additional restructurings and workforce reductions. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2017 and first quarter of 2018, we reduced the pricing on our entire camera product line to increase consumer demand, closed our aerial products business due to unfavorable market conditions, and implemented a workforce
reduction. Any such actions may result in the recording of charges including inventory-related write-offs, or other restructuring costs. Additionally, our estimates with respect to the useful life or ultimate recoverability of our assets, including purchased intangible assets and tooling, could also change and result in impairment charges.
We may not be able to secure additional financing on favorable terms, or at all, to meet our future capital needs.
In the future, we may require additional capital to respond to business opportunities, challenges, acquisitions or unforeseen circumstances and may determine to engage in equity or debt financings or enter into credit facilities for other reasons. We may not be able to timely secure additional financing on favorable terms, or at all. For example, our current credit facility contains restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, and any debt financing obtained by us in the future could involve further restrictive covenants, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. Further, even if we are able to obtain additional financing, we may be required to use such proceeds to repay a portion of our debt. If we raise additional funds through the issuance of equity or convertible debt or other equity-linked securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing under our credit facility, or alternative sources, when we require it, our ability to grow or support our business and to respond to business challenges could be significantly limited. In the event additional financing is required from outside sources, we may not be able to raise it on terms acceptable to us or at all.
Data protection breaches and cyberattacks could disrupt our products, services, internal operations, or information technology systems, and any such disruption could reduce our expected revenue, increase our expenses, damage our reputation, and cause our stock price to decline significantly.
Our products and services may contain unknown security vulnerabilities. For example, the firmware and software that are installed on our products may be susceptible to hacking or misuse. In addition, we offer a comprehensive online cloud management service, GoPro Plus, which can be paired with our cameras. If malicious actors compromise the GoPro Plus service, or if customer confidential information stored in the Plus service is accessed without authorization, our business will be harmed.
In operating GoPro Plus, we rely on third-party providers for a number of critical aspects for GoPro Plus services, including web hosting services, billing and payment processing and consequently, we do not maintain direct control over the security or stability of the associated systems. If we or our third-party providers are unable to successfully prevent breaches of security relating to our products, services, or user private information, including user videos and user personal identification information, or if these third-party systems fail for other reasons, we may need to spend increasing amounts of time and effort in this area. As a result, we could incur substantial expenses, our brand and reputation could suffer and our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.
Interruptions with the cloud-based systems that we use in our operations, provided by an affiliate of Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon), may materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We host GoPro Plus using Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers, a provider of cloud infrastructure services, and may in the future use other third-party cloud-based systems in our operations. Accordingly, our operations depend on protecting the virtual cloud infrastructure hosted in AWS by maintaining its configuration, architecture, features, and interconnection specifications, as well as the information stored in these virtual data centers and which third-party internet service providers transmit. Any incident affecting their infrastructure that may be caused by human error, fire, flood, severe storm, earthquake, or other natural disasters, cyberattacks, terrorist or other attacks, and other similar events beyond our control could negatively affect the GoPro Plus service. A prolonged AWS service disruption affecting our GoPro Plus service for any of the foregoing reasons would negatively impact our ability to serve our consumers and could damage our reputation with current and potential consumers, expose us to liability, cause us to lose consumers, or otherwise harm our business. We may also incur significant costs for using alternative equipment or taking other actions in preparation for, or in reaction to, events that damage the AWS services we use. Further, if we were to make updates to GoPro Plus that were not compatible with the
configuration, architecture, features, and interconnection specifications of the third-party platform, our service could be disrupted.
In the event that our AWS service agreements are terminated, or there is a lapse of service, elimination of AWS services or features that we use, interruption of internet service provider connectivity, or damage to such facilities, we could experience interruptions in access to GoPro Plus as well as significant delays and additional expense in arranging or creating new facilities and services and/or re-architecting our solutions for deployment on a different cloud infrastructure service provider, which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
The reputation of our services may be damaged, and we may face significant direct or indirect costs, decreased revenue and operating margins if our services contain significant defects or fail to perform as intended.
GoPro Plus and GoPro applications platform are complex and may not always perform as intended due to outages of our systems or defects affecting our services. System outages could be disruptive to our business and damage the reputation of our services and result in potential loss of revenue. Significant defects affecting our services may be found following the introduction of new software or enhancements to existing software or in software implementations in varied information technology environments. Internal quality assurance testing and end-user testing may reveal service performance issues or desirable feature enhancements that could lead us to reallocate service development resources or postpone the release of new versions of our software. The reallocation of resources or any postponement could cause delays in the development and release of future enhancements to our currently available software, damage the reputation of our services in the marketplace and result in potential loss of revenue. Although we attempt to resolve all errors that we believe would be considered serious by our partners and customers, the software powering our services is not error-free. Undetected errors or performance problems may be discovered in the future, and known errors that we consider minor may be considered serious by our channel partners and consumers. System disruptions and defects in our services could result in lost revenue, delays in customer deployment, or legal claims and could be detrimental to our reputation.
An economic downturn or economic uncertainty in our key United States and international markets, as well as fluctuations in currency exchange rates may adversely affect consumer discretionary spending and demand for our products.
Factors affecting the level of consumer spending include general market conditions, macroeconomic conditions, tax rates, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates and interest rates, and other factors such as consumer confidence, the availability and cost of consumer credit, and levels of unemployment. The substantial majority of our sales occur in U.S. dollars and an increase in the value of the dollar against the Euro and other currencies could increase the real cost to consumers of our products in those markets outside the United States. For example, in countries where we sell in local currency, we are subject to exchange rate fluctuations that create inherent risks for us and may cause us to adjust pricing which may make our products more or less favorable to the consumer. If global economic conditions are volatile or if economic conditions deteriorate, consumers may delay or reduce purchases of our products resulting in consumer demand for our products that may not reach our sales targets. Strengthening of the U.S. dollar and/or weakness in the economies of Euro zone countries could adversely impact sales of our products in the European region, which would have a material negative impact on our future operating results. Our sensitivity to economic cycles and any related fluctuation in consumer demand could adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.
Our international business operations account for a significant portion of our revenue and operating expenses and are subject to challenges and risks.
Revenue from outside the United States comprised
63%
,
55%
and
53%
of our revenue in
2018
,
2017
and
2016
, respectively, and we expect international revenue to continue to be significant in the future. Further, we currently have foreign operations in Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Philippines, Romania, United Kingdom and a number of other countries in Europe and Asia. Operating in foreign countries requires significant resources and considerable management attention, and we may enter new geographic markets where we have limited or no experience in marketing, selling, and deploying our products. International expansion has
required and will continue to require us to invest significant funds and other resources and we cannot be assured our efforts will be successful. International sales and operations may be subject to risks such as:
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difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations;
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burdens of complying with a wide variety of laws and regulations, including environmental, packaging and labeling;
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adverse tax effects and foreign exchange controls making it difficult to repatriate earnings and cash;
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changes to the taxation of undistributed foreign earnings;
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the effect of foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates;
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political and economic instability;
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terrorist activities and natural disasters;
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differing employment practices and laws and labor disruptions;
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the imposition of government controls;
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lesser degrees of intellectual property protection;
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tariffs and customs duties and the classifications of our goods by applicable governmental bodies;
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a legal system subject to undue influence or corruption; and
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a business culture in which illegal sales practices may be prevalent.
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The occurrence of any of these risks could negatively affect our international business and consequently our business, operating results and financial condition.
Security breaches and other disruptions including cyberattacks could expose us to liability, damage our brand and reputation, compromise our ability to conduct business, require use to incur significant costs or otherwise adversely affect our financial results.
In the ordinary course of our business, we electronically maintain sensitive data, including intellectual property, our proprietary business information and that of our customers and suppliers, and some personally identifiable information of our customers and employees, in our facilities and on our networks. Through GoPro Plus, users may store video and image files, including any telemetry or metadata that the user has chosen to associate with those files in the cloud. In our e-commerce services, we process, store and transmit consumer data. We also collect user data through certain marketing activities. For all of the foregoing internal and customer or consumer facing data and content collection, we collect and store that information in our or our third-party providers’ electronic systems. These systems may be targets of attacks, such as viruses, malware or phishing attempts by cyber criminals or other wrongdoers seeking to steal our users’ content or data, or our customer’s information for financial gain or to harm our business operations or reputation.
Any security breach, unauthorized access or usage, virus or similar breach or disruption of our systems or software could result in the loss of confidential information, costly investigations, remediation efforts and costly notification to affected consumers. If such content were accessed by unauthorized third parties or deleted inadvertently by us or third parties, our brand and reputation could be adversely affected. Cyberattacks could also adversely affect our operating results, consume internal resources, and result in litigation or potential liability for us and otherwise harm our business. Further, we are subject to general consumer regulations and laws, as well as regulations and laws specifically related to security and privacy of consumer data or content. In the event of an incident affecting the security of consumer data or content, regulators may open an investigation or pursue fines or penalties for non-compliance with these laws, or private plaintiffs may sue us, resulting in additional costs and reputational harm to our business.
Any significant cybersecurity incidents or disruption of our information systems, and our reliance on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technologies from third parties, could adversely affect our business operations and financial results.
We are increasingly dependent on information systems to process transactions, manage our supply chain and inventory, ship goods on a timely basis, maintain cost-efficient operations, complete timely and accurate financial reporting, operate our e-commerce website and respond to customer inquiries.
Our information systems and those of third parties we use in our operations are vulnerable to cybersecurity risk, including cyberattacks such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, computer viruses, physical or electronic break-ins that damage operating systems, and similar disruptions. For instance, in December 2017, researchers identified significant CPU architecture vulnerabilities commonly known as “Spectre” and “Meltdown” that have required software updates and patches, including for providers of public cloud services, to mitigate such vulnerabilities and such updates and patches may require servers to be offline and potentially slow their performance. Additionally, these systems periodically experience directed attacks intended to lead to interruptions and delays in our operations as well as loss, misuse or theft of data. We have implemented physical, technical and administrative safeguards to protect our systems. To date, unauthorized users have not had a material effect on our systems; however, there can be no assurance that attacks will not be successful in the future. In addition, our information systems must be constantly updated, patched and upgraded to protect against known vulnerabilities and optimize performance. Material disruptions or slowdown of our systems, including a disruption or slowdown could occur if we are unable to successfully update, patch and upgrade our systems.
System disruptions, failures and slowdowns, whether caused by cyberattacks, update failures or other causes, could affect our financial systems and operations. This could cause delays in our supply chain or cause information, including data related to customer orders, to be lost or delayed which could result in delays in the delivery of merchandise to our stores and customers or lost sales, especially if the disruption or slowdown occurred during our seasonally strong fourth quarter. Any of these events could reduce demand for our products, impair our ability to complete sales through our e-commerce channels and cause our revenue to decline. If changes in technology cause our information systems to become obsolete, or if our information systems are inadequate to handle our growth, we could lose customers or our business and operating results could be adversely affected.
The information systems used by our third-party service providers are vulnerable to these risks as well. In particular, we are heavily reliant on SaaS enterprise resource planning systems to conduct our order and inventory management, e-commerce and financial transactions and reporting. In addition, we utilize third-party cloud computing services in connection with our business operations. Problems faced by us or our third-party hosting/cloud computing providers, or content delivery network providers, including technological or business-related disruptions, as well as cybersecurity threats, could adversely affect our business and operating results, our ability to accurately report our financial results, as well as the experience of our consumers, which in turn could adversely affect our business and operating results.
As we expand our operations, we expect to utilize additional systems and service providers that may also be essential to managing our business. Our ability to manage our business would suffer if one or more of our providers suffer an interruption in their business, or experience delays, disruptions or quality control problems in their operations, or we have to change or add systems and services. While we conduct reasonable diligence on our service providers, we may not always be able to control the quality of the systems and services we receive from these providers, which could impair our ability to maintain appropriate internal control over financial reporting and complete timely and accurate financial reporting, and may affect our business, operating results and financial condition.
We are subject to governmental regulation and other legal obligations, particularly related to privacy, data protection and information security, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could adversely affect our business and operating results.
Personal privacy, data protection and information security are significant issues in the United States and the other jurisdictions where we offer our products and services. The regulatory framework for privacy and security issues worldwide is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Our handling of data is
subject to a variety of laws and regulations, including regulation by various government agencies, including the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and various state, local and foreign bodies and agencies.
The United States federal and various state and foreign governments have adopted or proposed limitations on the collection, distribution, use and storage of personal information of individuals, including end-customers and employees. In the United States, the FTC and many state attorneys general are applying federal and state consumer protection laws to the online collection, use and dissemination of data. Additionally, many foreign countries and governmental bodies, including in Australia, the European Union, India, Japan and numerous other jurisdictions in which we operate or conduct our business, have laws and regulations concerning the collection and use of personal information obtained from their residents or by businesses operating within their jurisdiction. These laws and regulations often are more restrictive than those in the United States. Such laws and regulations may require companies to implement new privacy and security policies, permit individuals to access, correct and delete personal information stored or maintained by such companies, inform individuals of security breaches that affect their personal information, and, in some cases, obtain individuals’ consent to use personal information for certain purposes.
We also expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, regulations and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection and information security in the United States, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and we cannot yet determine the impact of such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. For example, in June 2018, California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) which provides new data privacy rights for consumers and new operational requirements for companies effective in 2020. Additionally, we expect that existing laws, regulations and standards may be interpreted differently in the future. There remains significant uncertainty surrounding the regulatory framework for the future of personal data transfers from the European Union to the United States with regulations such as the recently adopted General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which imposes more stringent EU data protection requirements, provides an enforcement authority, and imposes large penalties for noncompliance. Future laws, regulations, standards and other obligations, including the adoption of the GDPR, as well as changes in the interpretation of existing laws, regulations, standards and other obligations could impair our ability to collect, use or disclose information relating to individuals, which could decrease demand for our products, require us to restrict our business operations, increase our costs and impair our ability to maintain and grow our customer base and increase our revenue.
Although we are working to comply with those federal, state and foreign laws and regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations and other legal obligations that apply to us, those laws, regulations, standards and obligations are evolving and may be modified, interpreted and applied in an inconsistent manner from one jurisdiction to another, and may conflict with one another, other requirements or legal obligations, our practices or the features of our products. As such, we cannot assure ongoing compliance with all such laws or regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations and other legal obligations. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with federal, state or foreign laws or regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations or other legal obligations, or any actual or suspected security incident, whether or not resulting in unauthorized access to, or acquisition, release or transfer of personal information or other data, may result in governmental enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity and could cause our customers to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. Any inability to adequately address privacy and security concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable laws, regulations, policies, industry standards, contractual obligations or other legal obligations could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales, and adversely affect our business and operating results.
Any significant disruption to our e-commerce business could result in lost sales
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Online sales through gopro.com represented more than 10% of our revenue in the first quarter of 2019. Any system interruptions or delays to our e-commerce business could cause potential consumers to fail to purchase our products and could harm our reputation and brand. The operation of our direct to consumer e-commerce business through gopro.com depends on the ability to maintain the efficient and uninterrupted operation of online order-taking and fulfillment operations. Our e-commerce operations subject us to certain risks that could have an adverse effect on our operating results, including risks related to the computer systems that operate our website and related support systems, such as system failures, viruses, cyberattacks, computer hackers and similar
disruptions. If we or our designated third-party contractors are unable to maintain and upgrade our e-commerce website or if we encounter system interruptions or delays, our operating results could be adversely affected.
We may acquire other businesses, which could require significant management attention, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value and adversely affect our operating results.
We have completed several acquisitions and may evaluate additional acquisitions of, or strategic investments in, other companies, products or technologies that we believe are complementary to our business. For example, in the first half of 2016, we acquired two mobile editing application companies for aggregate cash consideration of approximately $104 million.
We may not be able to find suitable acquisition candidates and we may not be able to complete acquisitions on favorable terms, if at all. If we do complete acquisitions, we may not ultimately strengthen our competitive position or achieve our goals, and any acquisitions we complete could be viewed negatively by users or investors. In addition, if we fail to successfully integrate such acquisitions, or the technologies associated with such acquisitions, the revenue and operating results of the combined company could be adversely affected. Acquisitions may disrupt our ongoing operations, divert management from their primary responsibilities, subject us to additional liabilities, increase our expenses and adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows. We may not successfully evaluate or utilize the acquired technology and accurately forecast the financial effect of an acquisition transaction, including accounting charges. We have recorded significant goodwill and intangible assets in connection with our acquisitions, and in the future, if our acquisitions do not yield expected revenue, we may be required to take material impairment charges that could adversely affect our results of operations.
We may have to pay cash, incur debt or issue equity securities to pay for any such acquisition, each of which could affect our financial condition or the value of our capital stock. The sale of equity to finance any such acquisitions could result in dilution to our stockholders. If we incur debt it would result in increased fixed obligations and could also subject us to covenants or other restrictions that would impede our ability to manage our operations. In addition, our future operating results may be affected by performance earnouts or contingent payments. For example, for our 2016 acquisitions, deferred cash and stock compensation was payable to certain continuing employees subject to meeting specified future employment conditions. Furthermore, acquisitions may require large one-time charges and can result in increased debt or contingent liabilities, adverse tax consequences, additional stock-based compensation expense and the recording and subsequent amortization or impairments of amounts related to certain purchased intangible assets, any of which could negatively affect our future results of operations.
Our success depends on our ability to maintain the value and reputation of our brand.
Our success depends on the value and reputation of our brand, including our primary trademarks “GOPRO,” “HERO,” “SESSION” and the GoPro logos. The GoPro brand is integral to the growth of our business and expansion into new markets. Maintaining, promoting and positioning our brand will largely depend on the success of our marketing and merchandising efforts, our ability to provide consistent, high quality products and services, and our consumers’ satisfaction with the technical support and software updates we provide. Failure to grow and maintain our brand or negative publicity related to our products, our consumers’ user-generated content, the athletes we sponsor, the celebrities we are associated with, or the labor policies of any of our suppliers or manufacturers could adversely affect our brand, business and operating results. Maintaining and enhancing our brand also requires substantial financial investments, although there is no guarantee that these investments will increase sales of our products or positively affect our operating results.
If we do not effectively maintain and further develop our sales channels, including developing and supporting our retail sales channel and distributors, our business could be harmed.
We depend upon effective sales channels to reach the consumers who are the ultimate purchasers of our products. In the United States, we primarily sell our products directly through a mix of retail channels, including big box, mid-market and specialty retailers, and we reach certain United States markets through distributors. In international markets, we primarily sell through distributors who in turn sell to local retailers; however, we also have direct sales relationships with certain customers.
We depend on retailers to provide adequate and attractive space for our products and POP displays in their stores and acquiesce to our policies. We further depend on our retailers to employ, educate and motivate their sales personnel to effectively sell our products. If our retailers do not adequately display our products, choose to reduce the space for our products and POP displays in their stores or locate them in less than premium positioning, or choose not to carry some or all of our products or promote competitors’ products over ours or do not effectively explain to customers the advantages of our products, our sales could decrease and our business could be harmed. If our retailers do not acquiesce to our policies, we may refuse to ship our products and our sales could decrease, and our business could be harmed. Similarly, our business could be adversely affected if any of our large retail customers were to experience financial difficulties or change the focus of their businesses in a way that deemphasized the sale of our products. We also continue to invest in providing new retailers with POP displays and expanding the footprint of our POP displays in existing stores, and there can be no assurance that this investment will lead to increased revenue.
Our distributors generally offer products from several different manufacturers. Accordingly, we are at risk that these distributors may give higher priority to selling other companies’ products. We have consolidated our distributor channels in certain regions, and if we were to lose the services of a distributor, we might need to find another distributor in that area and there can be no assurance of our ability to do so in a timely manner or on favorable terms. Further, our distributors build inventory in anticipation of future sales, and if such sales do not occur as rapidly as they anticipate, our distributors will decrease the size of their future product orders. We are also subject to the risks of our distributors encountering financial difficulties, which could impede their effectiveness and also expose us to financial risk if they are unable to pay for the products they purchase from us. Additionally, our international distributors buy from us in U.S. dollars and generally sell to retailers in local currency so significant currency fluctuations could affect their profitability, and in turn, affect their ability to buy future products from us. For example, the Brexit referendum vote in the U.K. caused significant short term volatility in global stock markets as well as currency exchange rate fluctuations.
We have converted portions of our distributors’ business into direct sales, and if we were to do this on a larger scale, it could create significant disruptions to our distribution channel and the associated revenue. Any reduction in sales by our current distributors, loss of key distributors or decrease in revenue from our distributors could adversely affect our revenue, operating results and financial condition.
A small number of retailers and distributors account for a substantial portion of our revenue, and if our relationships with any of these retailers or distributors were to be terminated or the level of business with them significantly reduced, our business could be harmed.
Our ten largest customers, measured by the revenue we derive from them, accounted for
48%
of our revenue for
2018
and
2017
, and
50%
of our revenue for
2016
. One retailer accounted for
13%
,
15%
and
17%
of our revenue for
2018
,
2017
and
2016
, respectively. A second retailer accounted for less than 10% of our revenue in
2018
and
2017
but accounted for
11%
of our revenue in
2016
. The loss of a small number of our large customers, or the reduction in business with one or more of our large customers, could have a significant adverse effect on our operating results. In addition, we may choose to temporarily or permanently stop shipping product to customers who do not follow the policies and guidelines in our sales agreements, which could have a material negative effect on our revenues and operating results. Our sales agreements with these large customers do not require them to purchase any meaningful amount of our products annually and we grant limited rights to return product to some of these large customers.
If we encounter problems with our distribution system, our ability to deliver our products to the market and to meet customer expectations could be harmed.
We rely on third-party distribution facilities for substantially all of our product distribution to distributors and directly to retailers. Our distribution facilities include computer controlled and automated equipment, which means their operations may be vulnerable to computer viruses or other security risks, the proper operation of software and hardware, electronic or power interruptions or other system failures. Further, because substantially all of our products are distributed from only a few locations and by a small number of companies, our operations could be interrupted by labor difficulties, extreme or severe weather conditions, or floods, fires or other natural disasters near our distribution centers, or port shutdowns or other transportation-related interruptions along our distribution
routes. Additionally, we use one primary supplier for the third-party distribution and if this supplier were to experience financial difficulties, it could adversely affect our business.
We may be subject to warranty claims that could result in significant direct or indirect costs, or we could experience greater returns from retailers than expected, which could harm our business and operating results.
We generally provide a 12-month warranty on all of our products, except in the European Union, or EU, where we provide a two-year warranty on all of our products. The occurrence of any material defects in our products could make us liable for damages and warranty claims in excess of our current reserves. In addition, we could incur significant costs to correct any defects, warranty claims or other problems, including costs related to product recalls. Any negative publicity related to the perceived quality and safety of our products could affect our brand image, decrease retailer, distributor and consumer confidence and demand, and adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. Also, while our warranty is limited to repairs and returns, warranty claims may result in litigation, the occurrence of which could adversely affect our business and operating results.
Based on our historical experience with our camera products, we have an established methodology for estimating warranty liabilities with respect to cameras and accessories.
In 2016, we launched GoPro Care, a fee-based service that offers a range of support options to our consumers, including extended warranty and accidental damage coverage in the United States, and expanded GoPro Care internationally. We also offer GoPro Plus which has a camera replacement benefit as part of the monthly subscription, which we expanded internationally to 30 countries in April 2019. Accidental damage coverage and extended warranties are regulated in the United States on a state level and are treated differently by state. Additionally, outside the United States, regulations for extended warranties and accidental damage vary from country to country. Changes in interpretation of the insurance regulations or other laws and regulations concerning extended warranties and accidental damage coverage on a federal, state, local or international level may cause us to incur costs or have additional regulatory requirements to meet in the future in order to continue to offer GoPro Care in compliance with any similar laws adopted in other jurisdictions. Our failure to comply with past, present and future similar laws could result in reduced sales of our products, reputational damage, penalties and other sanctions, which could harm our business and financial condition.
Consumers may be injured while engaging in activities with our products, and we may be exposed to claims, or regulations could be imposed, which could adversely affect our brand, operating results and financial condition.
Consumers use our cameras, drones and their associated mounts and accessories to self-capture their participation in a wide variety of physical activities, including extreme sports, which in many cases carry the risk of significant injury or death. Consumers may also use our drones for a wide range of flight activity, including aerial data collection, videography and photography. We may be subject to claims that users have been injured or harmed by or while using our products, including false claims or erroneous reports relating to safety, security or privacy issues, or that personal property has been damaged as a result of use of our drone. Although we maintain insurance to help protect us from the risk of such claims, such insurance may not be sufficient or may not apply to all situations. Similarly, proprietors of establishments at which consumers engage in challenging physical activities could seek to ban the use of our products in their facilities to limit their own liability. In addition, if lawmakers or governmental agencies were to determine that the use of our products increased the risk of injury or harm to all or a subset of our users or should otherwise be restricted to protect consumers, they may pass laws or adopt regulations that limit the use of our products or increase our liability associated with the use of our products. Any of these events could adversely affect our brand, operating results and financial condition.
Our intellectual property and proprietary rights may not adequately protect our products and services, and our business may suffer if it is alleged or determined that our technology, products, or another aspect of our business infringes third-party intellectual property or if third parties infringe our rights.
We own patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and other intellectual property (collectively “intellectual property”) related to aspects of our products, software, services and designs. Our commercial success may depend in part on our ability to obtain, maintain and protect these rights in the United States and abroad.
We regularly file patent applications to protect innovations arising from our research, development and design as we deem appropriate. We may fail to apply for patents on important products, services, technologies or designs in a timely fashion, or at all. We may not have sufficient intellectual property rights in all countries where unauthorized third-party copying or use of our proprietary technology occurs and the scope of our intellectual property might be more limited in certain countries. Our existing and future patents may not be sufficient to protect our products, services, technologies or designs and/or may not prevent others from developing competing products, services, technologies or designs. We cannot predict the validity and enforceability of our patents and other intellectual property with certainty.
We have registered, and applied to register, certain of our trademarks in several jurisdictions worldwide. In some of those jurisdictions, third-party filings exist for the same, similar or otherwise related products or services, which could block the registration of our marks. Even if we are able to register our marks, competitors may adopt or file similar marks to ours, seek to cancel our trademark registrations, register domain names that mimic or incorporate our marks, or otherwise infringe upon or harm our trademark rights. Although we police our trademark rights carefully, there can be no assurance that we are aware of all third-party uses or that we will prevail in enforcing our rights in all such instances. Any of these negative outcomes could affect the strength, value and effectiveness of our brand, as well as our ability to market our products. We have also registered domain names for websites, or URLs, that we use in our business, such as gopro.com, as well as social media handles. If we are unable to protect our domain names or social media handles, our brand, business, and operating results could be adversely affected. Domain names or social media handles similar to ours have already been registered in the United States and elsewhere, and we may not be able to prevent third parties from acquiring and using domain names or social media handles that infringe, are similar to, or otherwise decrease the value of, our trademarks. In addition, we might not be able to, or may choose not to, acquire or maintain trademark registrations, domain names, social media handles or other related rights in certain jurisdictions.
Litigation may be necessary to enforce our intellectual property rights. Initiating infringement proceedings against third parties can be expensive, take significant time, and divert management’s attention from other business concerns. We may not prevail in litigation to enforce our intellectual property against unauthorized use.
Third parties, including competitors and non-practicing entities, have brought intellectual property infringement claims against us. We expect to continue to receive such intellectual property claims in the future. While we will defend ourselves vigorously against any such existing and future legal proceedings, we may not prevail against all such allegations. We may seek licenses from third parties where appropriate, but they could refuse to grant us a license or demand commercially unreasonable terms. Further, an adverse ruling in an intellectual property infringement proceeding could force us to suspend or permanently cease the production or sale of products/services, face a temporary or permanent injunction, redesign our products/services, rebrand our products/services, pay significant settlement costs, pay third-party license fees or damage awards or give up some of our intellectual property. The occurrence of any of these events may adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.
If we are unable to maintain or acquire rights to include intellectual property owned by others in the content distributed by us, our marketing, sales or future business strategy could be affected or we could be subject to lawsuits relating to our use of this content.
The distribution of GoPro content helps to market our brand and our products. If we cannot continue to acquire rights to distribute user-generated content or acquire rights to use and distribute music, athlete and celebrity names and likenesses or other content for our original productions or third-party entertainment distribution channels or for our software products, our marketing efforts could be diminished, our sales could be harmed and our future content strategy could be adversely affected. In addition, third-party content providers or owners may allege that we have violated their intellectual property rights. If we are unable to obtain sufficient rights, successfully defend our use of or otherwise alter our business practices on a timely basis in response to claims of infringement, misappropriation, misuse or other violation of third-party intellectual property rights, our business may be adversely affected. As a user and distributor of content, we face potential liability for rights of publicity and privacy, as well as copyright, or trademark infringement or other claims based on the nature and content of materials that we distribute. If we are found to violate such third-party rights, then our business may suffer.
If we encounter issues with our manufacturers or suppliers, our business, brand, and results of operations could be harmed and we could lose sales.
We do not have internal manufacturing capabilities and rely on several contract manufacturers, located primarily in China and Mexico to manufacture our products. We cannot be certain that we will not experience operational difficulties with our manufacturers, including reductions in the availability of production capacity, errors in complying with product specifications, insufficient quality control, failures to meet production deadlines, increases in manufacturing costs and increased lead times. We also rely on a number of supply chain partners to whom we outsource activities related to inventory warehousing, order fulfillment, distribution and other direct sales logistics. Our supply chain partners are located in China, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore and a number of other countries in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. Our manufacturers and supply chain partners may experience disruptions in their operations due to equipment breakdowns, adding lines in a different country, labor strikes or shortages, natural disasters, component or material shortages, cost increases or other similar problems. Further, in order to minimize their inventory risk, our manufacturers might not order components from third-party suppliers with adequate lead time, thereby affecting our ability to meet our demand forecast. Therefore, if we fail to manage our relationship with our manufacturers and supply chain partners effectively, or if they experience operational difficulties, our ability to ship products to our retailers and distributors could be impaired and our competitive position and reputation could be harmed.
In the event that we receive shipments of products that fail to comply with our technical specifications or that fail to conform to our quality control standards, and we are not able to obtain replacement products in a timely manner, we risk revenue losses from the inability to sell those products, increased administrative and shipping costs, and lower profitability. Additionally, if defects are not discovered until after consumers purchase our products, they could lose confidence in the technical attributes of our products and our business could be harmed. For example, in the first quarter of 2018, we decided to end the life of our REMO accessory due to issues related to battery performance.
We do not control our contract manufacturers or suppliers, including their labor, environmental or other practices. Environmental regulations or changes in the supply, demand or available sources of natural resources may affect the availability and cost of goods and services necessary to run our business. We require our contract manufacturers and suppliers to comply with our formal supplier code of conduct and relevant standards and have ongoing audit programs in place to assess our suppliers’ compliance with our requirements. We periodically conduct audits of our contract manufacturers’ and suppliers’ compliance with our code of conduct, applicable laws and good industry practices. However, these audits may not be frequent or thorough enough to detect non-compliance. Deliberate violations of labor, environmental or other laws by our contract manufacturers or suppliers, or a failure of these parties to follow ethical business practices, could lead to negative publicity and harm our reputation or brand.
Failure to obtain new, and maintain existing, high-quality event, venue, athlete and celebrity sponsorships could harm our business.
Establishing relationships with high profile sporting and entertainment events, venues, sports leagues and sports associations, athletes and celebrity personalities to evaluate, promote and establish product credibility with consumers, including entering into sponsorship and licensing agreements, has and will continue to be a key element of our marketing strategy. However, as competition in our markets has increased, the costs of obtaining and retaining event, venue, athlete and celebrity sponsorships and licensing agreements have increased. Additionally, we may be forced to sign longer term sponsorships in order to retain relationships. If we are unable to maintain our current associations with our event, venue, athlete and celebrity partners, or to do so at a reasonable cost, we could lose the benefits of these relationships, and we may be required to modify and substantially increase our marketing investments. In addition, actions taken by endorsers of our products that harm their reputations could also harm our brand image with consumers. The failure to correctly identify high impact events and venues or build partnerships with those who develop and promote those events and venues, promising athletes or other appealing personalities to use and endorse our products, or poor performance by our endorsers, could adversely affect our brand and result in decreased sales of our products.
We could be adversely affected by violations of the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the United Kingdom Bribery Act or similar anti-bribery laws in other jurisdictions in which we operate.
The global nature of our business and the significance of our international revenue create various domestic and local regulatory challenges and subject us to risks associated with our international operations. The United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, the United Kingdom Bribery Act 2010, or the U.K. Bribery Act, and similar anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws in other jurisdictions generally prohibit United States based companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments to non-United States officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business, directing business to another, or securing an advantage. In addition, United States public companies are required to maintain records that accurately and fairly represent their transactions and have an adequate system of internal accounting controls. Under the FCPA, United States companies may be held liable for the corrupt actions taken by directors, officers, employees, agents, or other strategic or local partners or representatives. As such, if we or our intermediaries fail to comply with the requirements of the FCPA or similar legislation, governmental authorities in the United States and elsewhere could seek to impose substantial civil and/or criminal fines and penalties which could have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, operating results and financial condition.
We operate in areas of the world that experience corruption by government officials to some degree and, in certain circumstances, compliance with anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws may conflict with local customs and practices. Our global operations require us to import and export to and from several countries, which geographically expands our compliance obligations. In addition, changes in such laws could result in increased regulatory requirements and compliance costs which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. We cannot be assured that our employees or other agents will not engage in prohibited conduct and render us responsible under the FCPA or the U.K. Bribery Act. While we have compliance programs, they may not be effective to prevent violations from occurring and employees may engage in prohibited conduct nonetheless.
If we are found to be in violation of the FCPA, the U.K. Bribery Act or other anti-bribery or anti-corruption laws (either due to acts or inadvertence of our employees, or due to the acts or inadvertence of others), we could suffer criminal or civil penalties or other sanctions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
We are subject to governmental export and import controls and economic sanctions laws that could subject us to liability and impair our ability to compete in international markets.
The United States and various foreign governments have imposed controls, export license requirements and restrictions on the import or export of some technologies. Our products are subject to United States export controls, and exports of our products must be made in compliance with various economic and trade sanctions laws. Furthermore, United States export control laws and economic sanctions prohibit the provision of products and services to countries, governments, and persons targeted by United States sanctions. Even though we take precautions to prevent our products from being provided to targets of United States sanctions, our products, including our firmware updates, could be provided to those targets or provided by our customers. Any such provision could have negative consequences, including government investigations, penalties and reputational harm. Our failure to obtain required import or export approval for our products could harm our international and domestic sales and adversely affect our revenue.
We could be subject to future enforcement action with respect to compliance with governmental export and import controls and economic sanctions laws that result in penalties, costs, and restrictions on export privileges that could have a material effect on our business and operating results.
Our effective tax rate and the intended tax benefits of our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements depend on the application of the tax laws of various jurisdictions and on how we operate our business.
We are subject to income taxes in the United States and various jurisdictions outside the United States. Our effective tax rate could fluctuate due to changes in the mix of earnings and losses in countries with differing statutory tax rates. For example, our effective tax rates could be adversely affected by earnings being lower than anticipated in countries where we have lower statutory rates and higher than anticipated in countries where we have higher statutory rates. Our tax expense could also be affected by changes in non-deductible expenses,
changes in excess tax benefits related to exercises and vesting of stock-based expense, and the applicability of withholding taxes.
Due to economic and political conditions, tax rates in various jurisdictions may be subject to significant change. Our future effective tax rate could be unfavorably affected by changes in the tax rates in jurisdictions where our income is earned, by changes in, or our interpretation, of tax rules and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we do business, by unanticipated decreases in the amounts of jurisdictional earnings, or by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities. The United States, the European Commission, countries in the European Union, Australia, and other countries where we do business have been considering changes in relevant tax, accounting and other laws, regulations and interpretations, including changes to tax laws applicable to corporate multinationals. These potential changes could adversely affect our effective tax rates or result in other costs to us.
In addition, we are subject to the examination of our income tax returns by the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other domestic and foreign tax authorities. These tax examinations are expected to focus on our intercompany transfer pricing practices as well as other matters. We regularly assess the likelihood of outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes and other taxes and have reserved for adjustments that may result from the current examinations. We cannot provide assurance that the final determination of any of these examinations will not have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial position.
If we are unable to maintain effective internal control in the future, we may not be able to produce timely and accurate financial statements, which could adversely affect our investors’ confidence and our stock price.
Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, we are required to evaluate and determine the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, and to include a management report assessing the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. We expect that the requirements of these rules and regulations will continue to place significant demands on our financial and operational resources, as well as IT systems.
While we have determined that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of
March 31, 2019
, we must continue to monitor and assess our internal control over financial reporting. Our control environment may not be sufficient to remediate or prevent future material weaknesses or significant deficiencies from occurring. A control system, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance that the control system’s objectives will be met. Due to the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that misstatements due to error or fraud will not occur or that all control issues and all instances of fraud will be detected.
If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of our Class A common stock could be negatively affected, and we could become subject to investigations by the stock exchange on which our securities are listed, the SEC or other regulatory authorities.
We use open source software in our platform that may subject our technology to general release or require us to re-engineer our solutions, which may cause harm to our business.
We use open source software in connection with our services. From time to time, companies that incorporate open source software into their products have faced claims challenging the ownership of open source software and/or compliance with open source license terms. Therefore, we could be subject to suits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open source software or noncompliance with open source licensing terms. Some open source software licenses require users who distribute or make available open source software as part of their software to publicly disclose all or part of the source code to such software or make available any derivative works of the open source code on unfavorable terms or at no cost. While we monitor our use of open source software and try to ensure that none is used in a manner that would require us to disclose the source code or that would otherwise breach the terms of an open source agreement, such use could nevertheless occur and we may be required to release our proprietary source code, pay damages for breach of contract, re-engineer our applications, discontinue sales in the event re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis or take other
remedial action that may divert resources away from our development efforts, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition or operating results.
Our reported financial results may be negatively impacted by the changes in the accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.
Generally accepted accounting principles in the United States are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the SEC and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results, and may even affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement or effectiveness of a change. Other companies in our industry may apply these accounting principles differently than we do, which may affect the comparability of our condensed consolidated financial statements. For example, in February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-02 (Topic 842),
Leases
, which requires operating leases to be recognized on the balance sheet as a lease liability and corresponding right-of-use asset. Topic 842 was applied on a cumulative effect transition method and was effective for financial statements issued for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, and interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption was permitted. See Note
1
Summary of business and significant accounting policies
, to the Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for a discussion on recent accounting standards.
If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies and estimates prove to be incorrect, our operating results could be adversely affected.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in our
2018
Annual Report for the year ended
December 31, 2018
in the section titled
Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
. The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities and equity, and the amount of revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Our operating results may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to revenue recognition, inventory valuation, stock-based compensation expense, warranty reserves, goodwill and acquired intangible assets, and accounting for income taxes including deferred tax assets and liabilities.
Catastrophic events or political instability could disrupt and cause harm to our business.
Our headquarters are located in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, an area susceptible to earthquakes. A major earthquake or other natural disaster, fire, act of terrorism or other catastrophic event in California or elsewhere that results in the destruction or disruption of any of our critical business operations or information technology systems could severely affect our ability to conduct normal business operations and, as a result, our future operating results could be harmed. Our key manufacturing, supply and distribution partners have global operations including China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore and Taiwan as well as the United States. Political instability or catastrophic events in any of those countries could adversely affect our business in the future, our financial condition and operating results.
If we fail to comply with environmental regulations and conflict minerals disclosures, our business, financial condition, operating results and reputation could be adversely affected.
We are subject to various federal, state, local and international environmental laws and regulations including laws regulating the manufacture, import, use, discharge and disposal of hazardous materials, labeling and notice requirements relating to potential consumer exposure to certain chemicals, and laws relating to the collection of and recycling of electrical and electronic equipment and their packaging.
We are also subject to the SEC’s conflict minerals rule which requires disclosure by public companies of the origin, source and chain of custody of specified minerals, known as conflict minerals, that are necessary to the
functionality or production of products manufactured or contracted to be manufactured. We have and will continue to incur costs associated with complying with the rule, such as costs related to sourcing of certain minerals (or derivatives thereof), the determination of the origin, source and chain of custody of the minerals used in our products, the adoption of conflict minerals-related governance policies, processes and controls, and possible changes to products or sources of supply as a result of such activities. Within our supply chain, we may not be able to sufficiently verify the origins of the relevant minerals used in our products through the data collection and due diligence procedures that we implement, which may harm our reputation.
Although we have policies and procedures in place requiring our contract manufacturers and major component suppliers to comply with applicable federal, state, local and international requirements, we cannot confirm that our manufacturers and suppliers consistently comply with these requirements. In addition, if there are changes to these or other laws (or their interpretation) or if new similar laws are passed in other jurisdictions, we may be required to re-engineer our products to use components compatible with these regulations. This re-engineering and component substitution could result in additional costs to us or disrupt our operations or logistics.
Changes in interpretation of any federal, state, local or international regulation may cause us to incur costs or have additional regulatory requirements to meet in the future in order to comply, or with any similar laws adopted in other jurisdictions. Our failure to comply with past, present and future similar laws could result in reduced sales of our products, substantial product inventory write-offs, reputational damage, penalties and other sanctions, which could harm our business and financial condition. We also expect that our products will be affected by new environmental laws and regulations on an ongoing basis. To date, our expenditures for environmental compliance have not had a material effect on our results of operations or cash flows and, although we cannot predict the future effect of such laws or regulations, they will likely result in additional costs and may increase penalties associated with violations or require us to change the content of our products or how they are manufactured, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.
Risks related to Ownership of our Class A Common Stock
Our stock price has been and will likely continue to be volatile.
Since shares of our Class A common stock were sold in our IPO in July 2014 at a price of $24.00 per share, our closing stock price has ranged from
$4.04
to
$93.85
per share through
March 31, 2019
. Our stock price may fluctuate in response to a number of events and factors, such as quarterly operating results; changes in our financial projections provided to the public or our failure to meet those projections; the public’s reaction to our press releases, other public announcements and filings with the SEC; significant transactions, or new features, products or services offered by us or our competitors; changes in our business lines and product lineup; changes in financial estimates and recommendations by securities analysts; media coverage of our business and financial performance; the operating and stock price performance of, or other developments involving, other companies that investors may deem comparable to us; trends in our industry; any significant change in our management; sales and purchases of any Class A common stock issued upon conversion of our convertible senior notes or in connection with the prepaid forward contract entered into in connection with such convertible senior notes, and general economic conditions. These factors, as well as the volatility of our Class A common stock, could also affect the price of our convertible senior notes.
In addition, the stock market in general, and the market prices for companies in our industry, have experienced volatility that often has been unrelated to operating performance. These broad market and industry fluctuations may adversely affect the price of our stock, regardless of our operating performance. Price volatility over a given period may cause the average price at which we repurchase our own stock to exceed the stock’s price at a given point in time. Volatility in our stock price also affects the value of our equity compensation, which affects our ability to recruit and retain employees. In addition, some companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We are a defendant in several shareholder class action lawsuits as well as derivative lawsuits and may continue to be a target for such litigation in the future.
Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and liability and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could harm our business. See Legal Proceedings.
If we fail to meet expectations related to future growth, profitability, or other market expectations, our stock price may decline significantly, which could have a material adverse effect on investor confidence and employee retention. A sustained decline in our stock price and market capitalization could lead to impairment charges.
The dual class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting control with our CEO and we cannot predict the effect our dual class structure may have on our stock price or our business.
Our Class B common stock has 10 votes per share, and our Class A common stock has one vote per share. Stockholders who hold shares of Class B common stock hold approximately
73.3%
of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of
March 31, 2019
with Mr. Woodman, our Chairman and CEO, holding approximately
73.2%
of the outstanding voting power. Mr. Woodman is able to control all matters submitted to our stockholders, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets or other major corporate transaction. This concentrated control could delay, defer, or prevent a change of control, merger, consolidation, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets that our other stockholders support, or conversely this concentrated control could result in the consummation of such a transaction that our other stockholders do not support. This concentrated control could also discourage a potential investor from acquiring our Class A common stock due to the limited voting power of such stock relative to the Class B common stock and might harm the trading price of our Class A common stock.
In addition, we cannot predict whether our dual class structure, combined with the concentrated control by Mr. Woodman, will result in a lower or more volatile market price of our Class A common stock or in adverse publicity or other adverse consequences. For example, certain index providers have announced restrictions on including companies with multiple-class share structures in certain of their indexes. In July 2017, FTSE Russell announced that it plans to require new constituents of its indexes to have greater than 5% of the company’s voting rights in the hands of public stockholders, and S&P Dow Jones announced that it will no longer admit companies with multiple-class share structures to certain of its indexes. Because of our dual class structure, we may be excluded from these indexes and we cannot assure you that other stock indexes will not take similar actions. Given the sustained flow of investment funds into passive strategies that seek to track certain indexes, exclusion from stock indexes would likely preclude investment by many of these funds and could make our Class A common stock less attractive to other investors. As a result, the market price of our Class A common stock could be adversely affected.
If securities analysts do not publish research or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our Class A common stock depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our stock could decrease, which might cause our stock price and trading volume to decline.
Delaware law and provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws could make a merger, tender offer or proxy contest difficult, thereby depressing the trading price of our Class A common stock.
Our status as a Delaware corporation and the anti-takeover provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control by prohibiting us from engaging in a business combination with an interested stockholder for a period of three years after the person becomes an interested stockholder, even if a change in control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. In addition, our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that may make the acquisition of our company more difficult without the approval of our board of directors, or otherwise adversely affect the rights of the holders of our Class A and Class B common stock, including the following:
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our board of directors is not currently classified, but at such time as all shares of our Class B common stock have been converted into shares of our Class A common stock, our board of directors will be classified into three classes of directors with staggered three-year terms;
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so long as any shares of our Class B common stock are outstanding, special meetings of our stockholders may be called by the holders of 10% of the outstanding voting power of all then outstanding shares of stock, a majority of our board of directors, the chairman of our board of directors or our chief executive officer;
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when no shares of our Class B common stock are outstanding, only the chairman of our board of directors, our chief executive officer or a majority of our board of directors will be authorized to call a special meeting of stockholders;
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our stockholders may only take action at a meeting of stockholders and not by written consent;
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vacancies on our board of directors may be filled only by our board of directors and not by stockholders;
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directors may be removed from office with or without cause so long as our board of directors is not classified, and thereafter directors may be removed from office only for cause;
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our restated certificate of incorporation provides for a dual class common stock structure in which holders of our Class B common stock have the ability to control the outcome of matters requiring stockholder approval, even if they own significantly less than a majority of the outstanding shares of our Class A and Class B common stock, including the election of directors and significant corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of our company or its assets;
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our restated certificate of incorporation authorizes undesignated preferred stock, the terms of which may be established, and shares of which may be issued, by our board of directors without stockholder approval and which may contain voting, liquidation, dividend and other rights superior to those of our Class A and Class B common stock; and
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advance notice procedures apply for stockholders to nominate candidates for election as directors or to bring matters before an annual meeting of stockholders.
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Risks related to our convertible senior notes
We have indebtedness in the form of convertible senior notes.
In April 2017, we completed an offering of
$175.0 million
aggregate principal amount of
3.50%
convertible senior Notes due 2022 (Notes). As a result of this Notes offering, we incurred
$175.0 million
principal amount of indebtedness, the principal amount of which we may be required to pay at maturity in 2022. Holders of the Notes will have the right to require us to repurchase their Notes upon the occurrence of a fundamental change at a purchase price equal to 100% of the principal amount of the Notes to be purchased, plus accrued and unpaid interest, if any. In addition, the indenture for the Notes provides that we are required to repay amounts due under the indenture in the event that there is an event of default for the Notes that results in the principal, premium, if any, and interest, if any, becoming due prior to Maturity Date for the Notes. There can be no assurance that we will be able to repay this indebtedness when due, or that we will be able to refinance this indebtedness on acceptable terms or at all. In addition, this indebtedness could, among other things:
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heighten our vulnerability to adverse general economic conditions and heightened competitive pressures;
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require us to dedicate a larger portion of our cash flow from operations to interest payments, limiting the availability of cash for other purposes;
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limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and industry; and
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impair our ability to obtain additional financing in the future for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, general corporate purposes or other purposes.
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In addition, our ability to purchase the Notes or repay prior to maturity any accelerated amounts under the Notes upon an event of default or pay cash upon conversions of the Notes may be limited by law, by regulatory authority or by agreements governing our indebtedness outstanding at the time, including our credit facility. Our credit facility restricts our ability to repurchase the Notes for cash or repay prior to maturity any accelerated amounts under the Notes upon an event of default or pay cash upon conversion of the Notes to the extent that on the date of such repurchase, repayment or conversion, as the case may be, after giving pro forma effect to such payment, our remaining borrowing capacity pursuant to such credit facility falls below (i) to the extent that our fixed charge
coverage ratio is at least to 1.0, the greater of (A) $37.5 million and (B) 15% of the lesser of the aggregate commitments under such credit facility and the aggregate borrowing base then in effect or (ii) to the extent that our fixed charge coverage ratio is less than 1.0 to 1.0, the greater of (A) $50.0 million and (B) 20% of the lesser of the aggregate commitments under such credit facility and the aggregate borrowing base then in effect. Any of our future indebtedness may contain similar restrictions. Our failure to repurchase Notes at a time when the repurchase is required by the indenture (whether upon a fundamental change or otherwise under the indenture) or pay cash payable on future conversions of the Notes as required by the indenture would constitute a default under the indenture. A default under the indenture or the fundamental change itself could also lead to a default under agreements governing our existing or future indebtedness, including our credit facility. If the repayment of the related indebtedness were to be accelerated after any applicable notice or grace periods, we may not have sufficient funds to repay the indebtedness, repurchase the Notes or make cash payments upon conversions thereof.
Our credit facility imposes restrictions on us that may adversely affect our ability to operate our business.
Our credit facility contains restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. In addition, our credit facility contains, and the agreements governing the Notes will contain, a cross-default provision whereby a default under one agreement would likely result in cross defaults under agreements covering other borrowings. For example, the occurrence of a default with respect to any indebtedness or any failure to repay debt when due in an amount in excess of $25 million would cause a cross default under the indenture governing the Notes, as well as under our credit facility. The occurrence of a default under any of these borrowing arrangements would permit the holders of the Notes or the lenders under our credit facility to declare all amounts outstanding under those borrowing arrangements to be immediately due and payable. If the note holders or the trustee under the indenture governing the Notes or the lenders under our credit facility accelerate the repayment of borrowings, we cannot assure you that we will have sufficient assets to repay those borrowings.
Conversion of the Notes will, to the extent we deliver shares upon conversion of such Notes, dilute the ownership interest of existing stockholders, including holders who had previously converted their Notes, or may otherwise depress our stock price.
The conversion of some or all of the Notes will dilute the ownership interests of existing stockholders to the extent we deliver shares upon conversion of any of the Notes. Any sales in the public market of the common stock issuable upon such conversion could adversely affect prevailing market prices of our common stock. In addition, the existence of the Notes may encourage short selling by market participants because the conversion of the Notes could be used to satisfy short positions, or anticipated conversion of the Notes into shares of our common stock could depress our stock price.
The conditional conversion feature of the Notes, if triggered, may adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.
In the event the conditional conversion feature of the Notes is triggered, holders of the Notes will be entitled to convert the Notes at any time during specified periods at their option. If one or more holders elect to convert their Notes, unless we elect to satisfy our conversion obligation by delivering solely shares of our common stock (other than cash in lieu of any fractional share), we would be required to settle a portion or all of our conversion obligation through the payment of cash, which could adversely affect our liquidity. In addition, even if holders of the Notes do not elect to convert their Notes, we could be required under applicable accounting rules to reclassify all or a portion of the outstanding principal of the Notes as a current rather than long-term liability, which would result in a material reduction of our net working capital.
The accounting method for convertible debt securities that may be settled in cash, such as the Notes, may have a material effect on our reported financial results.
Under GAAP, an entity must separately account for the debt component and the embedded conversion option of convertible debt instruments that may be settled entirely or partially in cash upon conversion, such as the Notes we are offering, in a manner that reflects the issuer’s economic interest cost. The effect of the accounting treatment for such instruments is that the value of such embedded conversion option would be treated as original
issue discount for purposes of accounting for the debt component of the Notes, and that original issue discount is amortized into interest expense over the term of the Notes using an effective yield method. As a result, we will initially be required to record a greater amount of non-cash interest expense because of the amortization of the original issue discount to the Notes’ face amount over the term of the Notes and because of the amortization of the debt issuance costs.
Accordingly, we will report lower net income (or greater net loss) in our financial results because of the recognition of both the current period’s amortization of the debt discount and the Notes’ coupon interest, which could adversely affect our reported or future financial results, the trading price of our common stock and the trading price of the Notes.
In addition, convertible debt instruments (such as the Notes) that may be settled entirely or partly in cash are currently accounted for utilizing the if-converted method, the effect of which is that conversion will not be assumed for purposes of computing diluted income (loss) per share if the effect would be antidilutive. Under the if-converted method, for diluted income (loss) per share purposes, convertible debt is antidilutive whenever its interest, net of tax and nondiscretionary adjustments, per common share obtainable on conversion exceeds basic income (loss) per share. Dilutive securities that are issued during a period and dilutive convertible securities for which conversion options lapse, or for which related debt is extinguished during a period, will be included in the denominator of diluted income (loss) per share for the period that they were outstanding. Likewise, dilutive convertible securities converted during a period will be included in the denominator for the period prior to actual conversion. Moreover, interest charges applicable to the convertible debt will be added back to the numerator. We cannot be sure that the accounting standards in the future will continue to permit the use of the if-converted method. If we are unable to use the if-converted method in accounting for the shares issuable upon conversion of the Notes, then our diluted income (loss) per share would be adversely affected.
In addition, if the conditional conversion feature of the Notes is triggered, even if holders do not elect to convert their Notes, we could be required under applicable accounting rules to reclassify all or a portion of the outstanding principal of the Notes as a current rather than long-term liability, which would result in a material reduction of our net working capital.
The prepaid forward may affect the value of the Notes and our common stock and may result in unexpected market activity in the Notes and/or our common stock.
In connection with the issuance of the Notes, we entered into a prepaid forward with a forward counterparty. The prepaid forward is intended to facilitate privately negotiated derivative transactions by which investors in the Notes will be able to hedge their investment. In connection with establishing its initial hedge of the prepaid forward, the forward counterparty (or its affiliate) entered into or expects to enter into one or more derivative transactions with respect to our Class A common stock with purchasers of the Notes concurrently with or after the offering of the Notes. The prepaid forward is intended to reduce the dilution to our stockholders from the issuance of our Class A common stock (if any) upon conversion of the Notes and
to allow certain investors to establish short positions that generally correspond to commercially reasonable initial hedges of their investment in the Notes. In addition, the forward counterparty (or its affiliate) may modify its hedge position by entering into or unwinding one or more derivative transactions with respect to our Class A common stock and/or purchasing or selling our Class A common stock or other securities of ours in secondary market transactions at any time, including following the offering of the Notes and immediately prior to or shortly after April 15, 2022, the Maturity Date of the Notes (and are likely to unwind their derivative transactions and/or purchase or sell our Class A common stock in connection with any conversion or repurchase of the Notes, in connection with the purchase or sale of Notes by certain investors and/or in the event that sufficient borrow of our Class A common stock becomes available). These activities could also cause or avoid an increase or a decrease in the market price of our Class A common stock or the Notes.
The prepaid forward initially facilitated privately negotiated derivative transactions relating to our Class A common stock, including derivative transactions by which investors in the Notes established short positions relating to our Class A common stock to hedge their investments in the Notes concurrently with, or shortly after, the placement of the Notes. Neither we nor the forward counterparty control how such investors may use such derivative transactions. In addition, such investors may enter into other transactions in connection with such derivative transactions, including the purchase or sale of our Class A common stock, at any time. As a result, the
existence of the prepaid forward, such derivative transactions, and any related market activity could cause more sales of our Class A common stock over the term of the prepaid forward than there would have otherwise been had we not entered into the prepaid forward. Such sales could potentially affect the market price of our Class A common stock and/or the Notes.
The fundamental change repurchase feature of the Notes may delay or prevent an otherwise beneficial attempt to take over our company.
The terms of the Notes require us to repurchase the Notes in the event of a fundamental change. A takeover of our company would trigger an option of the holders of the Notes to require us to repurchase the Notes. In addition, if a make-whole fundamental change occurs prior to the Maturity Date of the Notes, we will in some cases be required to increase the conversion rate for a holder that elects to convert its Notes in connection with such make-whole fundamental change. Furthermore, the indenture for the Notes prohibits us from engaging in certain mergers or acquisitions unless, among other things, the surviving entity assumes our obligations under the Notes. These and other provisions of the indenture may have the effect of delaying or preventing a takeover of our company.
We are subject to counterparty risk with respect to the prepaid forward.
We will be subject to the risk that the forward counterparty might default under the prepaid forward. Our exposure to the credit risk of the forward counterparty will not be secured by any collateral. Global economic conditions have in the recent past resulted in, and may again result in, the actual or perceived failure or financial difficulties of many financial institutions. If the forward counterparty becomes subject to insolvency proceedings, we will become an unsecured creditor in those proceedings, with a claim equal to our exposure at that time under our transactions with the forward counterparty. Our exposure will depend on many factors, but, generally, an increase in our exposure will be correlated to an increase in the market price of our common stock. In addition, upon a default by the forward counterparty, we may suffer more dilution than we currently anticipate with respect to our
Class A
common stock. We can provide no assurances as to the financial stability or viability of the forward counterparty to the prepaid forward.