Item 1. Business
Overview
GoPro helps the world capture and share itself in immersive and exciting ways. Our cameras, mountable and wearable accessories, subscription services and software have generated substantially all of our revenue. We sell our products globally through retailers, distributors and on GoPro.com.
Our product offerings include the following:
•HERO10 Black is our flagship waterproof camera launched in the Fall of 2021, featuring our new high-performance GP2 processor, which delivers blistering video frame rates. The camera's highest video resolution of 5.3K at 60 frames per second delivers 91% more pixel resolution than 4K at 30 frames per second and 665% more pixel resolution than 1080p HD at an impressive 60 frames per second, allowing for fluid playback and 2X slow motion. 4K video can be captured at 120 frames per second (4X slow motion) and 2.7K video can be captured at 240 frames per second (8X slow motion). The new GP2 processor also enables HyperSmooth 4.0 video stabilization, ensuring that HERO10 Black smooths out even the most shake-ladened experiences. HERO10 Black's in-camera horizon leveling feature benefits from an increased tilt limit of 45° in high-performance settings, making even the most chaotic video footage look professionally smooth and steady. The new GP2 processor combined with the ultra-high resolution 23.6MP sensor enables life-like image quality. In addition to 23 megapixel photos, HERO10 Black enables 19.6 megapixel video stills to be pulled from 5K 4:3 video at 30 frames per second and 15.8 megapixel video stills from 5.3K video at 60 frames per second, which is ideal for capturing still images of sports and fast-paced activities. The HERO10 Black is also cloud connected while being charged and will automatically upload recently captured footage to the user’s GoPro cloud account. Additionally, the HERO10 Black continues to build off the noteworthy HERO9 Black features, including Power Tools, TimeWarp 3.0, front-facing and rear touch displays, and camera Mod compatibility. Our HERO10 Black, HERO9 Black, HERO8 Black and MAX cameras are compatible with our ecosystem of mountable and wearable accessories.
•HERO9 Black is our waterproof camera launched in the Fall of 2020, featuring a 23.6MP sensor that provides stunning 5K video, the highest resolution ever for a HERO camera, 20MP photos and HyperSmooth 3.0 video stabilization. The HERO9 Black camera also features a new front-facing display, a larger rear touch display, an extended battery life, new Power Tools, TimeWarp 3.0, SuperPhoto, live streaming, webcam mode, built-in mounting, cloud connectivity and voice control. HyperSmooth 3.0 is our most advanced stabilization ever and includes in-camera horizon leveling that keeps shots smooth and level. TimeWarp Video 3.0 features Real Speed, which allows users to slow down footage to real speed and capture audio while recording, and Half Speed, which allows users to slow down footage even more for epic slow motion. Webcam Mode enables users to connect their HERO9 Black camera to a computer with the included USB-C cable to use the camera as a 1080p high-definition wide-angle webcam. We also introduced new Power Tools, including HindSight, Scheduled Capture and Duration Capture to help users capture the perfect shot. HindSight allows users to capture and save up to 30 seconds of video before the shutter button is pressed. Scheduled Capture allows users to set up their cameras to automatically capture photos or videos up to 24 hours in advance and Duration Capture allows users to set their HERO9 Black to record for a specified length of time. In addition, we introduced a Max Lens Mod accessory that brings Max HyperSmooth video stabilization and Max SuperView’s ultra-wide-angle photo and video to the HERO9 Black camera. Our cameras are compatible with our ecosystem of mountable and wearable accessories, and feature automatic uploading capabilities for photos and videos for GoPro subscribers.
•MAX is our 360-degree waterproof camera featuring MAX HyperSmooth image stabilization, 360-degree MAX TimeWarp Video, MAX SuperView, PowerPano, built-in mounting, high-quality audio, live streaming, voice control and a front facing touch display. MAX HyperSmooth provides the highest performance video stabilization yet, while MAX SuperView provides the widest field of view ever from a GoPro camera. PowerPano allows users to capture a 6.2mp, 270-degree panoramic photo with the push of a button and creates an artifact-free shot of action or movement. Our MAX camera features six built-in microphones that allows users to capture immersive 360-degree audio, directional audio for vlogging and the best stereo sound ever from a GoPro.
•GoPro subscription is our subscription service that includes full access to the Quik app, unlimited cloud storage supporting source video and photo quality, camera replacement and damage protection, access to a
high-quality live streaming service on GoPro.com as well as discounts on GoPro cameras, gear, mounts and accessories. Our HERO5 Black and newer cameras can automatically upload photos and videos to a subscriber’s GoPro account at the highest possible quality, while HERO7 Black and newer cameras can also access our live-streaming service.
•Quik subscription is an important step in expanding our total addressable market to those who value organizing the visual moments of their lives with footage from any phone or camera. Quik subscribers can conveniently share their favorite photos or videos to the Quik app where those special “keeper” photos or videos will be added to a private “Mural” feed within the app. The Quik subscription provides access to a suite of powerful yet simple single-clip and multi-clip editing tools which allows users to edit photos or videos and create cinematic stories to showcase their life moments.
•Quik app is a mobile app that provides the primary experience for users of both the GoPro and Quik subscriptions and is the primary integration point for GoPro camera owners into the GoPro software ecosystem. The primary goal of the Quik app is to enable users to get the most out of their favorite photos and videos with footage from any phone or camera. This includes a simplified but powerful experience for offloading, backup, editing, story creation and sharing of user’s media.
We also offer a full ecosystem of mountable and wearable accessories. See Products for additional information.
We believe our investments in hardware, cloud and mobile software solutions have yielded a solid foundational experience for consumers that we will continue to build upon in 2022.
Our strategy
Helping our consumers capture and share their experiences in immersive and exciting ways is at the core of our business. We are committed to developing solutions that create an easy, seamless experience for consumers to capture, create and share engaging personal content. When consumers use our products and services, they often generate and share content that increases awareness for GoPro, driving a virtuous cycle and a self-reinforcing demand for our products. We believe revenue growth will be driven by the introduction of new cameras, accessories, lifestyle gear, and subscription benefits and offerings. We also believe new or improved camera features drive a replacement cycle among existing users and attract new users. Consumers can choose between numerous channels to purchase our hardware products, which are sold through GoPro.com or retailers. In addition, consumers may purchase subscriptions through GoPro.com or via the Quik mobile app.
We also strive to expand our total addressable market by providing GoPro subscribers with enhanced benefits and providing a Quik app experience that we believe addresses widespread pain points associated with using smartphones and GoPro cameras.
To achieve these goals, we are strongly focused on retaining employees committed to growing GoPro through great ideas and innovation by leveraging our strong brand recognition, unique culture, competitive compensation and benefits, and our strong commitment to our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging initiatives. Our employees collaborate cross-functionally to help achieve our goals such as continuously improving our GoPro.com site and maintaining relationships with our key retailers and distributors.
Products
Cameras. We offer a family of flagship cameras, including our cloud connected HERO10 Black, HERO9 Black, HERO8 Black and MAX cameras. Our HERO10 Black, HERO9 Black, HERO8 Black, and MAX cameras are durable, waterproof (without a housing), come with select mounting accessories, and have built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology, that provide connectivity with a mobile device to enable remote control, content viewing, editing and sharing functionality. Our HERO10 Black camera offers 5.3K video at 60 frames per second, HERO9 Black camera offers 5K video at 30 frames per second, and HERO8 Black camera can shoot video in 4K at 60 frames per second. MAX captures video in 360-degrees at 6K resolution and stitches to 5.6K. All of our current cameras feature multi-language voice and contextual control, image stabilization, a simplified user experience, and the ability to auto-upload photos and videos for GoPro subscription members via Wi-Fi for easy access and editing with our app. HERO10 Black, HERO9 Black, HERO8 Black and MAX also feature GPS and additional sensors that capture location, elevation, speed and G-force loads. In June 2021, we announced Open GoPro, an open API initiative that makes it easy for third-party developers to integrate HERO9 and newer cameras into their own development efforts.
Mounts and accessories. We offer a wide range of mounts and accessories, either bundled with a camera or sold separately, that enhance the functionality and versatility of our products, and enable our consumers to capture their experiences during a variety of activities or moments from different viewpoints. We also produce and sell camera attachments that we call Mods, which allow users to transform their HERO10, HERO9 or HERO8 Black cameras into a production powerhouse. The Media Mod provides an integrated directional microphone, the Light Mod illuminates a scene and the Display Mod allows users to perfectly frame themselves during self-capture. In addition, we offer a Max Lens Mod that brings Max HyperSmooth video stabilization and Max SuperView’s ultra-wide-angle photo and video to the HERO10 and HERO9 Black cameras. Other equipment-based mounts include helmet, handlebar, roll bar and tripod mounts. Our 3-way mount is a 3-in-1 mount that can be used as a camera grip, extension arm or tripod, and our floating mounts such as the Handler, and Bite Mount + Floaty, allow our cameras to float in water. We also enable consumers to wear mounts on their bodies with the use of our magnetic swivel clip, wrist housing, chest harness and head strap. Additionally, we offer spare batteries, dive filters and charging accessories and cables to connect our GoPro cameras to computers, laptops and television monitors. Our accessories expand the features, versatility and convenience of our cameras.
Lifestyle Gear. We offer a lifestyle gear lineup that melds our signature design and versatility across an exciting and ultra-functional line of bags, backpacks and cases. We also offer exclusive line of t-shirts, hats and other soft goods that capture the spirit of the brand.
Applications. We offer mobile and web applications that provide a complete media workflow for archiving, editing, multi-clip story creation and sharing content on the fly. In March 2021, we began offering the Quik app, which makes it easy for users to get the most out of their favorite photos and videos no matter which phone or camera is used to capture the footage. We believe the Quik app and the Quik subscription are important steps in expanding our total addressable market to those who value organizing the visual moments of their lives. Quik users can conveniently share their favorite photos or videos via the Quik app where those special “keeper” photos or videos will be added to a private “Mural” feed. Quik also features a suite of powerful yet simple editing tools which allows users to edit photos or videos themselves.
Services. Our GoPro subscription service offers a range of benefits to our consumers, including a camera protection plan and a platform that enables subscribers to easily access, edit and share content. The GoPro subscription also includes unlimited cloud storage supporting original source video and photo quality, access to a high-quality live streaming service on GoPro.com, as well as discounts on GoPro cameras, lifestyle gear, mounts and accessories. Our HERO5 Black and newer cameras can automatically upload photos and videos to a subscriber’s GoPro account at the highest possible quality, while HERO7 Black and newer cameras can access our live-streaming service. We had approximately 1.6 million subscribers as of December 31, 2021, representing 107% growth year-over-year.
Seasonality
Historically, we have experienced our highest levels of revenue in the fourth quarter of the year, coinciding with the holiday shopping season, particularly in the United States and Europe. While we aim to reduce the impact of fourth quarter seasonality on full year performance, timely and effective product introductions and forecasting, whether just prior to the holiday season or otherwise, are critical to our operations and financial performance.
Segment information and geographic data
We operate as one reportable segment. Financial information about geographic areas is presented in Note 10 Concentrations of risk and geographic information, to the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Research and development
We are passionate about developing new and innovative products that inspire our consumers and enhance our brand. We are constantly innovating to deliver better performance, expanded functionality and increased convenience to enhance the appeal of our products. We strive to remain a market leader by consistently introducing innovative products, software and services that offer optimal performance.
We have a user experience-driven approach to product development and our CEO leads product design. By engaging with customers, consumers and opinion leaders in our core markets around the world, our development team strives to introduce meaningful and empowering new features that expand the versatility and performance of our products. We also benefit from input received from our in-house production team, our sponsored athletes and our brand advocates that regularly travel the world capturing content using our products. We believe leveraging this input will help refine our existing products and influence future products that give us a competitive advantage.
Our engineering team supports the development of cameras, related mounts and accessories, firmware and software. Our hardware engineering team is responsible for developing solutions to support the concepts developed by our product team. These core technologies include GoPro’s custom designed system on chip, which allows cameras to perform advanced image computation and provides unparalleled image quality and next-level image stabilization, new image silicon processors, image sensors and lenses, as well as the core algorithms that enable the systems to operate and provide optimal performance and features. Our hardware engineering team also integrates these innovations and firmware into our product designs and develops our cameras, mounts and accessories.
Our software engineering team develops applications that enhance the functionality of our products and facilitate the management, editing, sharing and viewing of content. These applications are being developed for mobile, desktop and web-based platforms. Our core technologies include rendering engines to enable smooth video playback and editing, algorithms for moment identification, automatic story creation as well as cloud-based media storage, analysis and playback. Our software engineering team also manages our cloud and web platforms that power our application experiences and direct-to-consumer business via GoPro.com.
Manufacturing, logistics and fulfillment
Our products are designed and developed in the United States, France, China and Romania, and a majority of our manufacturing is outsourced to contract manufacturers located in China, Mexico and Thailand. We believe that using outsourced manufacturing enables greater scale and flexibility than establishing our own manufacturing facilities. Several key strategic parts are purchased from suppliers by us and then consigned to our manufacturers, while the vast majority of parts are procured directly by our contract manufacturers. Our strategic commodities team manages the pricing and supply of the key components of our cameras, including digital signal processors, sensors and lenses, and we leverage their expertise to achieve competitive pricing on the largest value-add components and leverage our contract manufacturers’ volume purchases for best pricing on common parts.
We have third-party facilities in China, Mexico and Thailand for final pack-out of our finished products. These finished products are shipped to fulfillment centers in the United States, as well as Hong Kong, Netherlands and Singapore that deliver our products to our customers.
Sales channels and customers
We offer our products in retail outlets as well as in over 90 countries through our direct sales channel, including GoPro.com, and indirectly through retailers and distributors. In 2021 and 2020, GoPro.com revenue represented 34% and 32% of our revenue, respectively, and retail accounted for 66% and 68% of our revenue, respectively.
Direct sales
We sell directly to most of our retailers in the United States, some of our retailers in Europe and to consumers worldwide through GoPro.com.
Independent specialty retailers. We use a network of location-based independent manufacturer representatives to sell our products to independent specialty retailers in the United States focused on sports and consumer activity capture markets. Our representatives provide highly personalized service to these retailers, including in-store merchandising, taking orders and providing clinics to educate retail sales personnel about GoPro products and services. We also have an internal, regionally focused sales team that provides a secondary level of service to both the independent specialty retailers and manufacturer representatives. Independent specialty retailers generally carry our higher end products, targeting their core customers who we believe tend to be early adopters of new technologies. Independent specialty retailers outside of the United States represent a similarly important sales channel for us, and we reach these customers indirectly through our network of international distributors.
Big box retailers. We sell to large retailers with a national presence, including Amazon.com, Inc., Best Buy, Inc., Target Corporation and Wal-Mart, Inc. We support these retailers with a dedicated and experienced sales management team that we believe enables us to reduce channel conflict.
Mid-market retailers. We also sell to retailers with a large regional or national presence, often focused on specific verticals such as consumer electronics, sporting goods, military, hunting and fishing, and motorsports. In the United States, we sell directly to these mid-market retailers through our experienced sales teams assigned to particular accounts and regions.
GoPro.com. We sell our full line of products to consumers worldwide through our online store at GoPro.com, which we market through online and offline advertising. GoPro.com revenue represented 34% and 32% of our revenue for 2021 and 2020, respectively, and 12% of our total revenue for 2019.
Distribution
We sell to over 35 distributors who resell our products to retailers in international and domestic markets. We have dedicated sales personnel focused on providing a high level of service to these distributors, including assisting with product mix planning, channel marketing and in-store merchandising, development of marketing materials, order assistance and educating the distributors’ sales personnel about GoPro products.
In-store merchandising
Our in-store merchandising strategy focuses on our iconic GoPro-branded, video-enabled point of purchase (POP) merchandising displays located in nearly all retail outlets where our products are sold. These displays showcase GoPro videos and present our product ecosystem in a customer-friendly manner. Our larger retailers help us represent a broader range of GoPro products due to their in-store deployment of our larger and custom POP displays. As of December 31, 2021 and 2020, we had approximately 23,000 and 22,000 POP displays, respectively, in retail outlets worldwide.
Marketing and advertising
Our marketing and advertising programs are focused on engaging consumers by exposing them to compelling GoPro content and educating them about new hardware features, as well as the power of our solutions for software editing (mobile and web applications) and content management. We believe this approach enhances our brand while demonstrating the performance, durability and versatility of our products. Our marketing and advertising efforts span a wide range of consumer interests and leverage both traditional consumer marketing and lifestyle marketing strategies.
Consumer marketing. Social media plays an important role in our consumer marketing strategy. Our consumers capture and share personal GoPro content on social media and content sharing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Vimeo and YouTube. At the end of 2021, we reached a total of 47.9 million lifetime followers. To date, we have reached over 11.2 billion views of content tagged #GoPro on TikTok and more than 3.6 billion views on GoPro’s YouTube channel. We also integrate user-generated content and GoPro originally produced content into advertising campaigns across various platforms including print, online, billboards and other out-of-home advertising, and at consumer and trade facing events. This content also supports our in-store channel marketing efforts, appearing on our POP displays and other in-store marketing materials. We continue to believe GoPro content remains a significant asset that builds awareness for our brand and products.
Lifestyle marketing. Our lifestyle marketing programs focus on expanding GoPro brand awareness by engaging consumers through relationships with key influencers, event promotions and other outreach efforts. We cultivate strong relationships with influential athletes, celebrities, entertainers and brands, all of whom use our products to create and share engaging content with their own fans and consumers.
Competition
The market for cameras is highly competitive and characterized by frequent product introductions and rapid technological advances. We believe the principal competitive factors impacting the market for our products include quality, reliability and user experience, price and performance, design innovation, brand recognition, marketing and distribution capability, service and support, and brand reputation.
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. We believe we compete favorably with these companies’ products. Our durable and versatile product design facilitates increased functionality and wearability, and we offer a variety of mounts and other accessories that enable a wide range of consumer use cases that are difficult for other competing products to address. Further, we offer many professional-grade features within our camera and 360-degree camera product offerings at attractive consumer price points, including our HyperSmooth 4.0 which is our most advanced stabilization ever and includes in-camera horizon leveling that keeps shots smooth and level, and for our 360 experience, MAX SuperView and PowerPano. MAX SuperView provides the widest view ever from a GoPro camera while PowerPano allows users to capture a 6.2mp, 270-degree panoramic photo with the push of one button and creates an artifact-free shot of action or movement. We also provide users with a suite of free mobile and desktop applications that enhance the overall GoPro experience. Moreover, we believe we have achieved significant brand recognition in our target vertical markets. We believe our years of experience working with active and influential consumers contributes to our ability to develop attractive products and establishes the authenticity of our brand, thereby differentiating us from current and potential competitors.
Smartphones and tablets with photo and video functionality have significantly displaced the market for traditional camera sales, and the makers of those devices also have mobile and other content editing applications and storage for content captured with those devices. Our Quik app and GoPro subscription service may not be as compelling a solution as those offered by other companies, such as Apple, Inc. and Google, although the Quik app supports content from other platforms including content from iOS and Android. Also, it is possible that, in the future, the manufacturers of such devices, 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. In addition, new companies may emerge and offer competitive products directly in our category.
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is an important aspect of our business, and our practice is to seek protection for our intellectual property as appropriate. Our trademarks, including “GOPRO,” “HERO” and the GoPro logos, among others, are a critical component of the value of our business. In addition, we hold many issued and pending utility and design patents for innovations that help our consumers capture, create and share their content using our cameras, mounts, accessories and software. Our patents cover areas that include physical structures, image processing, operational firmware and software, post-processing software, distribution software, mount and accessory structures, as well as the ornamental aspects of our hardware and software products. As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 1,046 issued patents and 398 patent applications pending in the United States, and 626 corresponding issued patents and 86 patent applications pending in foreign jurisdictions. Our issued United States patents will expire approximately between 2024 and 2041 and our issued foreign patents will expire approximately between 2024 and 2046. We cannot be certain that our patent applications will be issued or that any issued patents will provide us with any competitive advantage or will not be challenged by third parties. We continually review our development efforts to assess our innovations, including their patentability. We take active measures to protect our intellectual property against unauthorized third-party use, including misuse of our patents, copyrights, trademarks and other proprietary rights.
In addition to the foregoing protections, we generally control access to and use of our proprietary and other confidential information through the use of internal and external controls, including contractual protections in agreements with employees, contract manufacturers, distributors and others. Despite these protections, we may be unable to prevent third parties from using our intellectual property without our authorization, breaching any nondisclosure agreements with us, or independently developing products that are similar to ours, particularly in those countries where the laws do not protect our proprietary and intellectual property rights as fully as in the United States.
Human capital
We are continually investing in the engagement and retention of our global workforce by creating an inclusive workplace, providing market-competitive benefits to support our employees’ health and well-being, and fostering a learning environment in support of their growth and development. As of December 31, 2021, we employed 766 people.
Diversity and Inclusion
We are a company built on the foundation of a simple belief—“Be a HERO”—which means always bringing one’s best to any challenge or opportunity. This tenet is central to how we approach our work on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. We rolled out global training on interpersonal and systems bias to help employees do the internal work of understanding, recognizing, responding and preventing bias at all levels of our organization. Our CEO, Nicholas Woodman, also signed on to the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge, committing the Company to, over the coming years, increasing representation of underrepresented groups in our hiring, marketing and athlete rosters, as well as sharing our learnings with other outdoor brands as a catalyst for industry change.
Employee Development and Training
We prioritize employee development and training, which we believe have a direct impact on employee growth, engagement, and retention. To support managers and individual contributors within the company, we provide training and development opportunities focused on remote working as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic through our online portal, Opportunity Lab. Opportunity Lab enables employees to access virtual instructor-led classrooms or self-directed web-based courses focused on topics such as the importance of using emotional intelligence in difficult times, leading change, understanding employee engagement, feedback, and career development planning. Our leadership development focuses on building trust and relationship with peers and sharing best practices by working in small cohorts in each session. We continue to optimize our organizational efficiency and collaboration by providing training on effective meeting management and how to recognize unconscious bias. We believe that employee development is a shared responsibility of employee and manager, and through both formal and informal methods (e.g., stretch assignments and peer-to-peer learning) we build trust and encourage knowledge sharing. Through our Career Conversations program, managers and employees reflect quarterly,
guided by our company competency framework, on where they stand and where they need to put in more effort or increase their skills. We have a robust talent calibration and succession planning process to ensure we fill the talent pipeline and identify any skills gaps with development plans.
Corporate and available information
We were originally incorporated as Woodman Labs, Inc. in California and began doing business as GoPro in February 2004. We reincorporated in Delaware in December 2011 and in February 2014 we changed our name to GoPro, Inc. Our principal executive offices are located at 3025 Clearview Way, San Mateo, California 94402, and our telephone number is (855) 636-3578. We completed our initial public offering in July 2014 and our Class A common stock is listed on The Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “GPRO.” Our Class B common stock is not listed nor traded on any stock exchange.
We have registered and applied to register a number of trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the trademark offices of other countries including “GOPRO,” “HERO” and the GoPro logos. This Annual Report on Form 10-K also includes references to trademarks and service marks of other entities, and those trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.
Our website address is www.gopro.com. Through a link on the Investor Relations section of our website, we make available the following filings as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. All such filings are available free of charge. The information posted on our website is not incorporated into this report. The SEC maintains a website that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding our filings at www.sec.gov.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
You should carefully consider the risks described below and all other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K before making an investment decision. The risk factors below 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, and if revenue growth or profitability is achieved, we may not be able to sustain it.
Our cumulative GAAP income from the past three years may not be sustainable in future periods. We may not be able to achieve our forecast, sustain revenue growth or profitability, and our operating results may fluctuate unpredictably. For example, our annual revenue showed significant growth from 2020 to 2021 from $891.9 million to $1.16 billion, respectively. In 2020, annual revenue of $891.9 million was negatively impacted by COVID-19. In addition, we incurred operating income of $113.2 million and operating losses of $36.8 million, $2.3 million, and $94.0 million for the full year in 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018, respectively. In future periods, we could experience declines in revenue, or revenue could remain flat or grow more slowly than we expect, which could have a material negative effect on our future operating results.
Lower levels of revenue or higher levels of operating expense in future periods may result in losses or limited profitability. We may experience such lower levels of revenue or higher levels of operating expenses for a variety of reasons, including, among other factors: investments in product innovation, advertising and marketing; increasing freight rates; shipping delays; increased supply chain costs; or failure to maintain higher average sales pricing for our cameras.
Additionally, since the fourth quarter of 2016, we implemented four company-wide restructurings 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, in order to focus our resources on cameras, accessories, software and subscription services. We may not realize further or sustain cost savings from these previous actions. We may continue to experience fluctuating revenue, expenses and
profitability for a number of reasons, including other risks described in this 2021 Annual Report, and we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors.
Our goal to grow revenue and be profitable relies upon our ability to grow our direct-to-consumer sales mix and grow our subscriptions. If we do not effectively grow our direct-to-consumer revenue and subscriptions, our results of operations and profitability could be harmed.
Our ability to grow revenue and be profitable relies on several factors, including but not limited to, our ability to successfully implement certain strategic go to market initiatives. For example, some of our key strategic initiatives are to expand our direct-to-consumer sales through GoPro.com, expand our software and subscription services, and continue to work with key retail partners and distributors globally.
We have invested significant resources in our direct-to-consumer sales channel, primarily through our website, and our future growth relies, in part, on our continued ability to attract consumers to this channel, which has and will require significant expenditures in marketing, software development and infrastructure. If we are unable to continue to drive traffic to, and increase sales through our website, our business and results of operations could be harmed.
We have converted portions of our distributors’ business into direct sales and believe growing sales directly to our consumers will allow us to provide a best-in-class experience for online purchases. As we continue to convert distribution to direct sales, we might not be successful in that transition. Additionally, any reduction in sales or decreases in revenue by our current distributors and retailers or loss of key distributors or retailers could adversely affect our revenue, operating results and financial condition.
We depend on retailers to provide adequate and attractive space for our products and point of purchase displays in their stores and acquiesce to our policies and to effectively sell our products. We continue to look for opportunities to optimize our retail channel. Based on our strategic initiative to increase our direct-to-consumer sales through GoPro.com, our retailers may decide not to adequately display our products, choose to reduce the space for our products and POP displays in their stores, or choose not to carry some or all of our products or promote competitors’ products over ours and as a result, our sales could decrease and impact our plan to become more profitable.
We may not be able to transition away from some distributor agreements as quickly as we would like as a result of contractual, regulatory or other restrictions and may encounter difficulties in the transition to a more focused direct-to-consumer model. Further, our distributors build inventory in anticipation of future sales, and if such sales do not occur as rapidly as they anticipate, our distributors may decrease the size of their future product orders.
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 and other services, 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. We do not have internal manufacturing capabilities and rely on several contract manufacturers, located primarily in China to manufacture our products and all of the components that go into the manufacturing of our cameras and accessories are sourced from third-party suppliers. We do not control our contract manufacturers or suppliers, including their labor, environmental or other practices.
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 and could increase as a result of COVID-19 and its impact on the global supply chain. We have in the past experienced and may in the future experience component shortages, and the availability of these components may be unpredictable, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
We also rely on third-party distribution facilities and logistics operators for substantially all of our product distribution to distributors, retailers, and to consumers. 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.
Our reliance on single source, or a small number of suppliers involves a number of additional risks, including risks related to supplier capacity constraints, component availability, 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, pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic, or other catastrophic events.
In particular, for our camera designs, we incorporate system on chips, 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 system on chip in MAX as well as our HERO9 and HERO8 Black cameras and the GP2 system on chip in our HERO10 Black camera and rely on a single supplier as the primary supplier of our system on chips.
Additionally, we host our software applications and firmware upgrades for our cameras using Amazon Web Services (AWS). A prolonged AWS service disruption affecting our subscription products 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. 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 the GoPro or Quik subscriptions 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.
If we do not successfully coordinate or if we encounter issues with our manufacturers, suppliers, or supply chain, business, brand, and results of operations could be harmed and we could lose sales.
Our business requires us to coordinate the manufacture and distribution of our products. The continued COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in industry-wide global supply chain challenges, including manufacturing, transportation and logistics. If we do not successfully coordinate with our service providers, we may have insufficient supply of products to meet customer demand, we could lose sales, incur additional costs, and our financial performance may be adversely affected.
The effect of seasonal demand fluctuations on supply chains, transportation costs, fuel costs, labor unrest, natural disasters, regional or global pandemics, and other adverse effects on our ability, timing and cost of delivering products can increase our inventory, decrease our margins, adversely affect our relations with distributors and other customers and otherwise adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
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.
As a company engaged in manufacturing and distribution, we are subject to the risks inherent in such activities, including disruptions or delays in supply chain. During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and as a result of governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic among other macro-economic factors, certain of our suppliers and manufacturers have experienced disruptions, resulting in supply shortages and costs increases, and similar disruptions could occur in the future. Any increases in the costs of goods and services for our business may also adversely affect our profit margins particularly if we are unable to achieve higher price increases or otherwise increase cost or operational efficiencies to offset the higher costs.
The COVID-19 outbreak has had a material impact on the United States and global economies and could have a material adverse impact on our employees, suppliers, customers and end consumers, which could adversely and materially impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, a pandemic and public health emergency of international concern. Many federal, state and local governments, and private entities have mandated various restrictions, including travel restrictions, restrictions on public gatherings, stay at home orders and advisories, and quarantining of people who may have been exposed to the virus. At this point, we cannot reasonably estimate the duration and severity of this pandemic, including multiple waves of increased infections or variants of the coronavirus, which in 2020 had a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, financial position and cash flows. Our 2020 annual revenue of $891.9 million was negatively impacted by COVID-19.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we accelerated a shift in our sales channel strategy to focus more on direct-to-consumer sales through GoPro.com, and implemented a restructuring plan in April 2020 (the “2020 Restructuring Plan”) to realign our workforce to areas of growth combined with certain cost saving measures. The 2020 Restructuring Plan reduced our operating expenses in 2020 as a result of a 20% reduction of our global workforce and the consolidation of certain leased office facilities. Continued execution of the 2020 Restructuring Plan may not achieve continued savings into 2021 and beyond.
We may take further actions as may be required by government authorities or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers and business partners. The extent of the impact will depend on the global severity of and actions taken to contain the outbreak, which are highly uncertain and unpredictable. A prolonged disruption or any further unforeseen delay in our operations or within any of our business activities could result in increased costs and reduced revenue.
The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve. Certain jurisdictions have begun re-opening only to return to restrictions due to increases in new COVID-19 cases and the emergence of new variant strains of COVID-19. Even in areas where “stay-at-home” restrictions have been lifted and the number of cases of COVID-19 has declined, many individuals remain cautious about resuming activities. Additionally, the emergence of new variant strains of COVID-19 in regions that have reopened has led to, and may continue to lead to, in some areas, renewed government restrictions. The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may impact our business will depend on future developments that are highly uncertain, and therefore cannot be predicted with certainty.
The pandemic may adversely affect our customers, our employees and our employee productivity. It may also impact the ability of our contract manufacturers, vendors and suppliers to operate and fulfill their contractual obligations, and result in an increase in costs, tariffs, delays or disruptions in performance. These supply chain effects, the direct effect of the virus and the disruption on our employees and operations, may negatively impact both our ability to meet customer demand and our revenue and profit margins.
We might experience changes in consumer demand, particularly if our users are restricted from participating in travel, adventure and sports activities that are often the subject of their use of our products and services and, as a result of the impacts on consumer discretionary spending resulting from the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy. Both the health and economic aspects of the COVID-19 virus are highly fluid, and the future course of each is uncertain and subject to change.
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 2021, greater demand associated with the launch of new products heading into the holiday season. Fourth quarter revenue comprised 34%, 40% and 44% of our 2021, 2020 and 2019 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, any impact on consumer spending due to COVID-19, 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, shipping delays, or for any other reason, including the fact that some retail locations may not be open for consumers due to COVID-19 restrictions, could cause our annual results of operations to suffer significantly.
In addition, we typically experience lower revenue in the first half of the year as a percentage of total revenue for the year, as compared to second half revenue. First half revenue comprised 39%, 28% and 45% of our annual 2021, 2020 and 2019 revenue, respectively.
Our future growth depends in part on further penetrating our total addressable market, and we may not be successful in doing so.
Historically, the majority of our growth has 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 may not be able to acquire and retain subscribers and cannot be certain that these efforts will be successful, and as a result, we may not be able to increase our total addressable market. We may not be able to expand our market through this strategy on a timely basis, or at all, or recognize the benefits of our investments in this strategy, and we may not be successful in providing tools that our users adopt or believe are easy to use, which will negatively affect our future growth.
Our growth also depends on expanding the market with new capture perspectives with our 360-degree camera, MAX, which is a resource-intensive initiative in a highly competitive market, and by adding versatility to our products with expansion mods for HERO9 Black and HERO10 Black. We cannot be assured that we will be successful in expanding the market with new capture perspectives or by adding new versatility to our products. 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.
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 consumer demand for new and upgraded products and services to maintain or increase our revenue. The markets for our products and services are characterized by intense competition, evolving distribution models, disruptive technology developments, short product life cycles, customer price sensitivity and frequent product introductions.
The success of new product introductions, such as the HERO10 Black, depends on a number of factors including, but not limited to, timely and successful research and development of next generation systems, pricing, market and consumer acceptance, the ability to successfully identify and originate product trends, 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 including testing of new parts and features.
Additionally, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recovery, we may not be able to accurately forecast consumer demand and inventory requirements and appropriately manage inventory to meet demand. 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.
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 could harm our business.
We expect to derive the majority of our revenue from sales of cameras, mounts and accessories for the foreseeable future and an increasing amount of revenue attributable from our subscription products. A decline in the price or unit demand for these products, whether due to a strategic shift in sales channel strategy and macroeconomic conditions, including variable tariff rates, competition or otherwise, or our inability to increase sales of higher price point 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 MAX 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.
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 products and services. Our research and development expenses were $141.5 million, $131.6 million and $142.9 million for 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. We expect that our research and development expenses will continue to be substantial in 2021 as we develop innovative technologies. 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.
Security and data breaches and cyberattacks could disrupt our web platform, 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.
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 GoPro.com and respond to customer inquiries.
Our products, services and operating systems may contain unknown security vulnerabilities. For example, the firmware and software that are installed on our products may be susceptible to hacking or misuse, or we may experience disruptions to our GoPro.com platform. In addition, we offer a comprehensive online cloud management service through our GoPro subscription. If malicious actors compromise our products and services, including without limitation hacking or breach of such products and services, our business and our reputation will be harmed.
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 personally identifiable information of our customers and employees. We store and collect user data uploaded by users through the GoPro subscription and the Quik app and through certain marketing activities. For all of the foregoing, 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, including web hosting services, billing and payment processing, 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 and our reputation.
While we maintain industry standard cybersecurity insurance, our insurance may be insufficient for a particular incident or may not cover all liabilities incurred by any such attacks. We also cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate for data handling or data security liabilities actually incurred, that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that any insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, litigation to pursue claims under our insurance policies or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, or denials of coverage, could have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, operating results and financial condition. The increase in remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic may also result in heightened risks related to consumer privacy, network security and fraud. 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.
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 the digital imaging market 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 digital imaging market is highly competitive. Further, competition has intensified in digital imaging as new market entrants and existing competitors have introduced new products and more competitive offerings into our markets. Increased competition, tariffs, 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 software application, and GoPro and Quik subscription products may not be as compelling as those offered by other companies, such as Apple, Adobe or Google, although the Quik 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 and qualified personnel to operate our business. If we are unable to attract, engage and retain qualified personnel, our ability to develop, transform and successfully operate 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, 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 the fourth quarter of 2016, we implemented four global reductions-in-force and 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 as a result.
Qualified individuals are in high demand, and we may incur significant costs to attract and retain them including circumstances beyond our control, including increased wages due to inflation, increasing competition among employers in the prevailing labor market, and labor market constraints. We have limited control over these factors. Competition for qualified personnel is intense generally and particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, where our headquarters are located. In particular, we compete with many other companies for skilled positions and we may not be successful in attracting and retaining the professionals we need. 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 to do so.
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. Additionally, the shift to a work from home environment may impact our ability to attract and retain our highly skilled employees.
Further, 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 2021, our closing stock price ranged from a high of $13.54 to a low of $7.45, which occurred in the first 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.
Our gross margin can vary significantly depending on multiple factors, which can result in unanticipated fluctuations in our operating results.
Our gross margin can vary due to consumer demand, competition, product pricing, product lifecycle, product mix, new product introductions, GoPro.com sales mix, subscription activation, renewals, and cancellations, commodity costs, supply chain, logistics costs and shipping costs, currency exchange rates, trade policy and tariffs, and the complexity and functionality of new product innovations and other factors. For example, our gross margin was 41.1%, 35.3% and 34.6% for 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. In particular, if we are not able to introduce new products in a timely manner at the product cost we expect, or if consumer demand for our products is less than we anticipate, or if cancellation rates for GoPro subscriptions is higher than expected, or if there are product pricing, marketing and other initiatives by our competitors to which we need to react or that are initiated by us to drive sales that lower our margins, then our overall gross margin will be less than we project.
As we innovate with new products, we may have lower gross margins that do not deliver a sufficient return on investment. In addition, depending on competition or consumer preferences, we may face higher up-front investments in development to compete or market our products, and increased inventory write-offs. If we are unable to offset these potentially lower margins by enhancing the margins in our product categories, our profitability may be adversely affected.
The impact of these factors on gross margin can create unanticipated fluctuations in our operating results, which may cause volatility in the price of our shares.
Changes to trade agreements, 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, tariff levels, or export or other licensing requirements. 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, including components and materials, 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, including component vendors, located in China and in other countries to manufacture our products. Our contract manufacturer locations expose us to risks associated with doing business globally, including risks related to changes in tariffs or other export and import restrictions, and increased security costs. Additionally, the current United States administration continues to signal that it may continue to alter global trade agreements and terms. For example, the United States imposed additional tariffs on imports from China and continues to potentially impose other restrictions on exports from China to the United States. In 2018, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) identified certain Chinese imported goods for additional tariffs to address China’s trade policies and practices. 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, or we may choose to pay for these tariffs without raising prices which may negatively impact our results of operations and profitability. 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 products or imposes any other export restrictions on our products.
We continue to monitor manufacturing capabilities outside of China and may choose to pursue those capabilities to mitigate risks of additional tariffs, duties or other restrictions on our products and may decide to transition more manufacturing outside of China.
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.
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 forecasted 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 and 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 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 2020 and 2019 and, as of December 31, 2021, we had an accumulated deficit of $279.3 million. Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2016 through the second quarter of 2020, we implemented four global reductions-in-force and other restructuring actions to reduce our operating expenses. We may not realize the cost savings expected from cost reduction actions.
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.
Our international 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 55%, 52% and 64% of our revenue in 2021, 2020 and 2019, 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, Japan, 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:
•difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations;
•burdens of complying with a wide variety of laws and regulations, including environmental, packaging and labeling;
•delays or disruptions in our supply chain;
•adverse tax effects and foreign exchange controls making it difficult to repatriate earnings and cash;
•changes to the taxation of undistributed foreign earnings;
•the effect of foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates, including any fluctuations caused by uncertainties relating to Brexit, inflation or the strengthening of the U.S. dollar;
•political, economic instability, or social unrest in a specific country or region in which we operate, including, for example, the effects of Brexit, which could have an adverse impact on our operations in that location;
•organized crime activity;
•terrorist activities, acts of war, natural disasters, and pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic;
•quarantines or other disruptions to our operations resulting from pandemics or other widespread public health problems;
•trade restrictions;
•the effects of climate change;
•differing employment practices and laws and labor disruptions;
•the imposition of government controls;
•lesser degrees of intellectual property protection;
•tariffs and customs duties and the classifications of our goods by applicable governmental bodies;
•a legal system subject to undue influence or corruption; and
•a business culture in which illegal sales practices may be prevalent.
The occurrence of any of these risks could negatively affect our international business and consequently our business, 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 third-party customers, measured by the revenue we derive from them, accounted for 46%, 44% and 42% of our revenue in 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. One retailer accounted for 11%, 10% and 11% of our revenue for 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. 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.
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,” 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, including through establishing relationships with high profile sporting and entertainment events, venues, sports leagues and sports associations, athletes and celebrity personalities, 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
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, 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. 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. 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.
We may grow our business in part through acquisitions, joint ventures, investments and partnerships, 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. Negotiating these transactions can be time-consuming, difficult and expensive, and our ability to close these transactions may be subject to third-party or government approvals, which are beyond our control. Consequently, we can make no assurance that these transactions, once undertaken and announced, will close.
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 encounter difficulties assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products, personnel, or operations of acquired companies, particularly if the key personnel of the acquired business choose not to work for us, or we have difficulty retaining the customers of any acquired business, 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. In addition, our original estimates and assumptions used in assessing any transaction may be inaccurate, including estimates of 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 enter into any such acquisition, joint venture, strategic alliances or partnership, which could affect our financial condition or the value of our capital stock. 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. We cannot assure investors that the anticipated benefits of any acquisition or investment will be realized.
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, threat of fire, act of terrorism, public health issues 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, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. Political instability, public health issues or other catastrophic events in any of those countries could adversely affect our business in the future, our financial condition and operating results.
Risks related to our intellectual property and technology licenses
Our intellectual property and proprietary rights may not adequately protect our products and services, and our business may suffer, 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, applied to register, and/or used certain of our trademarks in several jurisdictions worldwide. In some of those jurisdictions, third-party registrations, filings, or common law use exist for the same, similar or otherwise related products or services, which could block the registration of or ability to use 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.
We have been, and in the future may be, sued by third parties for alleged infringement of their intellectual property and proprietary rights.
Third parties, including competitors and non-practicing entities, have brought intellectual property infringement claims against us, including the matter described in Note 9 Commitments, contingencies and guarantees to the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. While we will defend ourselves vigorously against any such existing and future legal proceedings, we may not prevail against all such allegations, including the matter described in Note 9 Commitments, contingencies and guarantees to the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. 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 materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results or cash flows.
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.
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 products and services. From time to time, companies that incorporate open source software into their products or services 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.
Risks related to regulatory compliance
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. Our agreements with certain customers and business partners may also subject us to certain requirements related to our processing of personal information, including obligations to use industry-standard or reasonable security measures to safeguard personal information.
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, processing, storage, deletion and dissemination of data. Further, all states have enacted laws requiring companies to notify individuals, regulatory authorities and others of security breaches involving personal information.
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. We expect that existing laws, regulations and standards may be interpreted differently in the future. For example, in November 2020, the California ballot initiative known as the Consumer Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) was passed. CPRA will come into effect in January 2023 (except for the CPRA’s right of access which will come into effect in January 2022), and will supersede the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Compliance with the new obligations imposed by the CPRA depends in part on how particular regulators interpret and apply them. If we fail to comply with the CCPA or CPRA or if regulators assert that we have failed to comply with the CCPA or CPRA, we may be subject to certain fines, sanctions, or other penalties, as well as litigation.
Further, some observers have noted that the CCPA and CPRA could mark the beginning of a trend toward more stringent privacy legislation in the U.S. and prompt a number of proposals for new federal and state-level privacy legislation. For example, in 2021, Virginia passed the Virginia Data Protection Act, or CDPA (enacted March 2021, effective January 1, 2023) and Colorado passed the Colorado Privacy Act, or CPA (enacted July 2021, effective July 1, 2023). We cannot fully predict the impact of the CCPA, CPRA, CDPA, CPA, or other similar laws or regulations on our business or operations, but they may require us to modify our data processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs and expense in an effort to comply.
Additionally, many foreign countries and governmental bodies, including Australia, the European Union (EU), India, Japan and numerous other jurisdictions in which we operate or conduct our business, have laws and regulations concerning the collection, use, processing, storage and deletion 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.
For example, in the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes more stringent EU data protection requirements, provides an enforcement authority, and imposes large penalties for noncompliance. Compliance with the obligations imposed by the GDPR depends in part on how particular regulators interpret and apply them, which may require us to comply with varying, and at times conflicting, standards across the EU jurisdictions where we operate. If we fail to comply with the GDPR or if regulators assert that we have failed to comply with the GDPR, we may be subject to fines of up to 4% of our worldwide annual revenue.
Among other requirements, the GDPR regulates transfers of personal data outside of the EU to countries that have not been found to provide adequate protection to personal data, including the United States, requiring that certain steps are taken to legitimize those transfers. We have undertaken certain efforts to conform transfers of personal data from the EU to the United States and other jurisdictions based on our understanding of current regulatory obligations and the guidance of data protection authorities. Despite this, we may be unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining conforming means of transferring such data from the European Economic Area, or EEA, particularly as a result of continued legal and legislative activity within the EU that has challenged or called into question the legal basis for existing means of data transfers to countries that have not been found to provide adequate protection for personal data.
Further, the United Kingdom (U.K.) exited the EU on January 31, 2020 (“Brexit”), which has created additional uncertainty with regard to the regulation of data protection in the U.K. and could lead to further legislative and regulatory changes. The UK has implemented the Data Protection Act that contains provisions, including its own derogations for how GDPR is applied in the U.K. legislation that substantially implements the GDPR, with penalties for noncompliance of up to the greater of £17.5 million (€20 million) or four percent of worldwide revenues. These changes will lead to additional costs as we try to ensure compliance with new privacy legislation and will increase our overall risk exposure.
In addition to government regulation, privacy advocates and industry groups may propose new and different self-regulatory standards that may apply to us. One example of such a self-regulatory standard is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI DSS, which relates to the processing of payment card information. In the event we are required to comply with the PCI DSS but fail to do so, fines and other penalties could result, and we may suffer reputational harm and damage to our business.
Future laws, regulations, standards and other obligations, 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.
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.
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.
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, including but not limited to laws and regulations focused on climate change, on an ongoing basis. Climate change has had significant legislative and regulatory effects on a global basis, and there are expected to be additional changes to the regulations in these areas. These changes could directly increase the cost of energy, which may have an impact on the way we manufacture products or utilize energy to produce our products. In addition, any new regulations or laws in the environmental area might increase the cost of raw materials we use in our products and the cost of compliance. Other regulations in the environmental area may require us to continue to monitor and ensure proper disposal or recycling of our products. Since we operate on a global basis, this is a complex process that requires continual monitoring.
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.
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.
Risks related to our need for additional capital
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 facilities contain 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.
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 $2.01 to $93.85 per share through December 31, 2021. 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 our 2022 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 have been subject to past 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 Note 9 Commitments, contingencies and guarantees, in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for a discussion on 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 67.3% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of December 31, 2021 with Mr. Woodman, our Chairman and CEO, holding approximately 67.2% 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, including FTSE Russell and S&P Dow Jones, have announced restrictions on including companies with multiple-class share structures in certain of their 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.
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.
Risks related to our indebtedness and capped call transactions
We have indebtedness in the form of convertible senior notes.
In November 2020, we completed an offering of $143.8 million aggregate principal amount of 1.25% convertible senior notes due 2025 (2025 Notes). As a result of the 2025 Notes, we incurred an additional $143.8 million principal amount of indebtedness, the principal amount of which we may be required to pay at maturity in 2025.
In April 2017, we completed an offering of $175.0 million aggregate principal amount of 3.50% convertible senior notes due 2022 (2022 Notes, together with the 2025 Notes, the Notes). We repurchased $50.0 million aggregate principal amount of the 2022 Notes in November 2020, and expect to repay the remaining principal amount of $125.0 million at maturity in April 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 indentures for the Notes provides that we are required to repay amounts due under such 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 our indebtedness when due, or that we will be able to refinance our indebtedness, all or in part, on acceptable terms. In addition, our indebtedness could, among other things:
•heighten our vulnerability to adverse general economic conditions and heightened competitive pressures;
•require us to dedicate a larger portion of our cash flow from operations to interest payments, limiting the availability of cash for other purposes;
•limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and industry; and
•impair our ability to obtain additional financing in the future for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, general corporate purposes or other purposes.
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, we do not meet certain financial criteria set forth in the credit facility.
Any of our future indebtedness may contain similar restrictions. Our failure to repurchase the Notes at a time when the repurchase is required by the indentures (whether upon a fundamental change or otherwise under the indentures) or pay cash payable on future conversions of the Notes as required by the indentures would constitute a default under the indentures. A default under the indentures 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. 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 indentures 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 or may adversely affect our financial condition.
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.
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 current 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 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, under certain circumstances, convertible debt instruments (such as the Notes) that may be settled entirely or partly in cash are currently permitted to be accounted for utilizing the treasury stock method for earnings per share purposes. The effect of this is that the shares issuable upon conversion of the Notes are excluded from the calculation of diluted earnings per share except to the extent that the conversion value of the Notes exceeds their principal amount. Under the treasury stock method, for diluted earnings per share purposes, the transaction is accounted for as if the number of shares of Class A common stock that would be necessary to settle such excess are assumed to be issued.
The FASB issued an accounting standard update to amend these accounting standards to eliminate the treasury stock method for convertible instruments and instead require application of the “if-converted” method. Under that method, diluted earnings per share would generally be calculated assuming that all the Notes were converted solely into shares of Class A common stock at the beginning of the reporting period, unless the result would be anti-dilutive, which would negatively affect diluted earnings per share. The expected impact from the “if converted” method would add 26 million shares to the diluted share count, which will be reduced by approximately 12 million shares after the repayment of the 2022 Notes in April 2022. This accounting standard update will be adopted by us beginning January 1, 2022.
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 Capped Call transactions may affect the value of the 2025 Notes and our Class A Common Stock and we are subject to counterparty risk with respect to Capped Call transactions.
In connection with the pricing of the 2025 Notes, we entered into privately negotiated capped call transactions, or Capped Calls, with one or more financial institutions. The Capped Calls are expected generally to reduce the potential economic dilution to holders of our Class A common stock upon any conversion of the 2025 Notes, with such reduction and/or offset subject to a cap.
The capped call counterparties and/or their respective affiliates may modify their hedge positions by entering into or unwinding various derivatives 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 prior to the maturity of the 2025 Notes (and are likely to do so during any observation period related to a conversion of the 2025 Notes or following an repurchase of the 2025 Notes by the Company on any fundamental change repurchase date or otherwise). This activity could also cause or avoid an increase or a decrease in the market price of our Class A common stock or the 2025 Notes.
The potential effect, if any, of these transactions and activities on the trading price of our Class A common stock or the 2025 Notes will depend in part on market conditions. Any of these activities could adversely affect the trading price of our Class A common stock or the 2025 Notes.
Additionally, we will be subject to the risk that the capped call counterparties might default under the Capped Calls. Our exposure to the credit risk of the capped call counterparties is not 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 capped call counterparties become 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 capped call counterparties. 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 Class A common stock. In addition, upon a default by the capped call counterparties, 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 capped call counterparties to the Capped Calls.
General Risk Factors
An economic downturn or economic uncertainty in our key United States and international markets, as well as inflation or 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, inflation, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates and interest rates, and other factors such as consumer confidence, the availability and cost of consumer credit, levels of unemployment and a reduction in consumer spending or disposable income resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic that may affect us more significantly than companies in other industries and companies with more diversified products. Additionally, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Brexit) has created economic and political uncertainty, including volatility in global financial markets and the value of foreign currencies. The impact of Brexit may not be fully realized for several years. The 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. If our costs become subject to significant inflationary pressures, we may not be able to fully offset such higher costs through price increases and our inability or failure to do so could harm our business, financial condition, and operating results. 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 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 additional tax expense and 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.
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 consolidated financial statements.
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 the 2021 Annual Report 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 estimates and assumptions made by management include those related to revenue recognition (including sales incentives, sales returns and implied post contract support), inventory valuation, product warranty liabilities, the valuation, impairment and useful lives of long-lived assets (property and
equipment, operating lease right-of-use assets, intangible assets and goodwill), the fair value of our convertible senior notes, and income taxes.