What happened
Shares of action-camera company GoPro (GPRO 5.92%) dropped on Friday after reporting financial results for the fourth quarter of 2022. But I think this pullback should be kept in perspective -- the stock is still up about 18% year to date and beating the 8.7% gain for the S&P 500. However, GoPro stock was down about 9% on Friday as of noon ET.
So what
In Q4, GoPro generated revenue of $321 million, down 18% from the same quarter last year. And full-year 2022 revenue of $1.09 billion was down 6% from 2021. These numbers were barely short of Wall Street's expectations.
On the bottom line, the good news is that GoPro was profitable in 2022. With $3 million in Q4 net income, the company's full-year total came in at $29 million. However, the bad news is that its profits fell substantially from 2021. Even when adjusting the numbers to account for one-time benefits last year, adjusted net income fell almost 45% year over year.
Now what
To summarize GoPro's 2022, it's a stable business, but it isn't growing. Adding to the company's stability is its growing subscription revenue stream. It ended Q4 with 2.25 million subscribers, up 43% year over year.
GoPro's stability does give management the luxury of experimenting a little more in 2023 to find the growth that it needs. For example, earlier this month, Cinedigm announced that it's partnering with GoPro to launch a streaming channel. Perhaps that could provide a growth avenue.
That said, any growth from streaming would probably provide a limited boost to GoPro's business. For the foreseeable future, this is still mostly an action-camera company. And management will need to use capital smartly to create shareholder value.
