Action camera maker GoPro (GPRO 1.44%) has taken a beating on the stock market over the past year as investors seem to have lost confidence in its ability to clock rapid growth.
So it was not surprising to see investors pressing the panic button once again following the release of GoPro's first-quarter fiscal 2022 results on May 5. Though GoPro's quarterly earnings exceeded expectations, Wall Street wasn't impressed with the company's tepid guidance. However, a closer look at GoPro's history of quarterly results indicates that the company has a habit of lowballing its guidance and then delivering better-than-expected numbers.
GoPro has beaten analysts' earnings expectations by big margins over the last four quarters. More importantly, a closer look at the company's key metrics tells us that it is moving in the right direction. Let's look at the reasons why GoPro stock could come out of its rut and start accelerating once again.
NASDAQ: GPRO
Key Data Points
GoPro is pulling the right strings
GoPro's first-quarter 2022 revenue increased just 6% year over year to $217 million. However, the company's margin improvements allowed it to substantially boost its bottom line. The company's non-GAAP gross margin of 42% was a nice jump over the prior-year period's figure of 39.2%. As a result, GoPro's non-GAAP earnings tripled year over year to $15 million, or $0.09 per share, in the first quarter.
The company's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) came in at 10% of revenue in Q1, compared to 5% of revenue in the year-ago period. GoPro's solid bottom-line gains can be attributed to the company's growing subscriber base and higher average selling prices (ASPs) of its action cameras.
GoPro's subscription revenue increased 73% year over year in Q1 to $19 million as more customers opted for services such as cloud storage and the Quik editing app. The company's subscriber base was up 85% year over year to 1.74 million. It is also worth noting that GoPro's direct-to-consumer sales approach paid off in Q1, with product and subscription sales from its website growing 8% year over year to $89 million.
Investors should note that GoPro's subscription and service business carries a gross profit margin between 75% and 80%, which is significantly higher than the company's overall margins. So the subscription business is not only creating a sustainable revenue stream for GoPro, but it is also boosting the company's profitability thanks to a stronger margin profile.
Meanwhile, GoPro is also witnessing healthy growth in ASPs of its cameras, as customers are spending on higher-priced cameras. In Q1, 64% of the action cameras that GoPro sold were priced at $400 or more. That was up from the prior-year period when 56% of cameras sold were $400 or higher.
What's more, the company could be at the beginning of a terrific growth curve, as the action camera market is expected to clock an annual growth rate of 14.4% through the end of the decade, hitting $23 billion in revenue by 2030. So GoPro is scratching the surface of a massive opportunity, as it has generated $1.17 billion in revenue in the trailing twelve months.
A good time to buy
GoPro's big crash this year has made the stock too cheap to ignore. It is trading at just 0.8 times sales and 2.3 times earnings. The Nasdaq-100, for comparison, has a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.
GoPro's impressive bottom-line performance, the room for growth in the company's subscription business, and the secular growth opportunity in the action camera market indicate that this tech stock could take off in the long run. That's why investors looking to buy a beaten-down value stock that could step on the gas in the long run might want to consider buying shares of GoPro before they get expensive.
