Action-camera maker GoPro is acquiring the companies behind two mobile video editing apps for $105 million, addressing a gap in its software package amid increasing competition from drones and smartphones.
One of the apps, Paris-based Stupeflix’s Replay, automatically edits selected footage on a mobile phone into a single video, while the Splice app owned by Texas-based Vemory allows users to trim, crop, and add advanced video effects.
Analysts, investors, and users have pointed to video editing as one of the biggest problems with GoPro’s software interface because it can take users hours to upload and sift through hours of footage to put together a video. The company’s stock has lost almost a third of its value this year after plummeting more than 70% last year.
“We recognize that the future is not hunkering out at your desktop for four to five hours on a Sunday evening to edit whatever interesting content you captured over the weekend,” CEO Nicholas Woodman told Bloomberg. “The future is weaving a content creation experience into people’s everyday life flow — GoPro needs become much more contemporary.”
When asked if Replace and Splice will continue to exist in their current independent forms, Woodman said they would be “incorporated and merged into the GoPro experience.”
Forbes noted that the acquisitions represent a change in thinking for Woodman, who in the past “has shied away from enabling collaborations between his products and mobile phones, which many critics see as devices that could cannibalize GoPro’s video and image capture market.”
“It’s a recognition that ‘enabling great content’ means ‘enabling great content,’ not just great content captured from one specific device,” Woodman said. “Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot put into my own video.”
GoPro earlier this month posted a fourth-quarter adjusted loss of $11.4 million, or eight cents per share, compared to a profit of $144.9 million, or 99 cents per share, in the same period a year ago. The earnings missed analyst estimates by eight cents. The shares closed Monday at $11.88, down 3.4%.