GoPro shares surge more than 10% after Apple acquisition speculation
Shares of action cam maker GoPro jumped 16% on Thursday after market analysts speculated that the company may be an acquisition target for Apple.
GoPro shares opened at $17.25 and rose as high as $19.56 on Thursday before closing at $18.83. The spike began when FBR Capital Markets and Co. research analyst Daniel Ives listed GoPro as a potential strategic acquisition for Apple in 2016, saying a GoPro purchase would "make sense" for the Cupertino company.
"We believe GoPro would fit like a glove into the Apple product portfolio," Ives commented in an email to MarketWatch.
Prior to the suggestion from Ives, GoPro shares were down 82% from their all-time high of $93.85 in October 2014. Shares fell below the $24 IPO price in November.
At the close of business Thursday, GoPro had a market capitalization of $2.6 billion, while Apple had more than $200 billion in cash reserves. The companies have worked together closely in the past, with Apple Stores stocking a range of GoPro products and GoPro working to support Apple's entire ecosystem, now including the Apple Watch.
GoPro shares opened at $17.25 and rose as high as $19.56 on Thursday before closing at $18.83. The spike began when FBR Capital Markets and Co. research analyst Daniel Ives listed GoPro as a potential strategic acquisition for Apple in 2016, saying a GoPro purchase would "make sense" for the Cupertino company.
"We believe GoPro would fit like a glove into the Apple product portfolio," Ives commented in an email to MarketWatch.
Prior to the suggestion from Ives, GoPro shares were down 82% from their all-time high of $93.85 in October 2014. Shares fell below the $24 IPO price in November.
At the close of business Thursday, GoPro had a market capitalization of $2.6 billion, while Apple had more than $200 billion in cash reserves. The companies have worked together closely in the past, with Apple Stores stocking a range of GoPro products and GoPro working to support Apple's entire ecosystem, now including the Apple Watch.
Comments
There simply is no reason for Apple to buy Go Pro.
Besides, Go Pro is getting killed by clones from other companies, including cheap Chinese knock offs.
Go Pro does not add any new technology that improves Apple's products.
There is nothing that Go Pro can do since all it is is a simple camera.
In fact, Apple has all the technology to replicate anything Go Pro can do. Apple already uses Sony cameras on its iPhones. All Apple has to do is to create a box, add a Sony camera, add a battery and storage then voila! a Go Pro clone.
In fact, the iPhone can already be mounted and do what Go Pro can do.
Or perhaps Jonny has become enamored of crappy little video boxes mounted on helmets like giant cyber-warts? Jonny: "OMG that looks so futuristic!" — ha!
Or maybe Apple's entire video production staff has finally thrown in the towel on video quality. Epileptic video fragments are the new, um, black or something...?
One thing you can be sure of: the Ives guy just made a ton of money manipulating the market.
Apple missed one critical acquisition opportunity and that was Nest.
Frankly, for me, it has at least as much justification than Beats.
I have a Nest thermostat but don't have a Nest account anymore and won't be buying any of their new products.
They could easily out gun GoPro in-house if they wanted to.
These anal-ysts are hyping the stock so that they can take profit at the end of the year before the potential tax hike.
While GoPro stock is way down and they're apparently having problems, they created a totally new market for action cameras from scratch. And the profits might not even be in the camera itself, but in all the accessories. Go into some physical camera stores and see all the space devoted to GoPro and its accessories. It's actually quite impressive.
Cost aside (and I think with all the cash Apple has sitting around, cost is not really a factor), I think this actually could be a good acquisition for Apple (certainly better than Beats was). Much tighter integration between GoPro and Apple's products could benefit both companies.
I participate in a Nikon forum and one of the things I've said there is that Nikon missed the boat on pro-video, action cameras (except for their one waterproof point-and-shoot) and drone cameras. GoPro and the Drone companies have proven that there are consumer markets to replace the ever-declining point-and-shoot market (which itself has been killed by smartphone cameras) and Canon has proven that there's a strong market for pro-level video.
On the other hand, Apple could take the basics of an iPod Touch (with WiFi), put it in a new waterproof and shockproof case and create mounts and accessories for it to do what GoPro already does or have the equivalent of a GoPro camera that works with an existing iPhone the same way as the Apple Watch works with the iPhone. But they might have to get over their thinness obsession to make it all work.
But having said all that, I think the rumor is b.s.