
GoPro to move U.S.-bound camera production out of China - petethomas
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gopro-china/gopro-to-move-u-s-bound-camera-production-out-of-china-idUSKBN1O91NG
======
throwy67i4
Does GoPro actually do their own development?

I remember reading an article when they were starting up, snd the founder
basically went to some expo in a China and purchased OEM devices and slapped
his brand on there.

Edit: This isn’t the article but it sheds some more light.

> Once he had the strap sorted out, Woodman would need a camera to go with it.
> He eventually found a 35-millimeter model made in China. Woodman made an
> old-school prototype using a Dremel tool, plastic blocks, and glue. He
> mailed it to China, wired $5,000 to get started, and in September 2004 GoPro
> made its first sale when a Japanese distributor ordered 100 units after
> seeing the product at a trade show.

[https://www.maxim.com/gear/gopro-founder-nick-woodman-
profil...](https://www.maxim.com/gear/gopro-founder-nick-woodman-
profile-2017-2)

~~~
trevyn
There are an infinite number of shades of grey between “slap brand on an OEM
product” and “the full Apple”. Companies often shift their approach (in both
directions!) over time, and it will vary for different product lines.

~~~
jonknee
And "the full Apple" is still someone else makes the product (Apple purchases
iPhones from Foxconn):

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-
china-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-china-apple-
stores.html)

~~~
dependsontheq
Yes but Apple also finances the factories and is deeply embedded. The system
might just be the most advanced integrated supply chain on the planet.

~~~
jonknee
Sure, but plenty of companies actually assemble their own products (like say
Samsung).

~~~
theredbox
Samsung is not just samsung. Samsung is actually many companies working under
the same brand and corporate culture.

You cant talk about samsung as a single company.

------
vthallam
Think it's a smart decision, the Chinese market is full of DJI or Xiaomi
anyway, so they will not be losing any market share there.

~~~
mrweasel
What? The GoPros sold in the US will just be produced in a third country, the
article doesn’t say where though. You can still get a Chinese made GoPro in
China

The interesting bit is where GoPro will get the cameras for the US market
produced.

~~~
ryanmercer
>The interesting bit is where GoPro will get the cameras for the US market
produced.

I'd guess Thailand or Japan. I clear international freight through customs for
my primary income and see a lot of finished cameras, and even just CMOS, with
the most common countries being China, Japan (e.g. Canon) and Thailand (e.g
Nikon). A lot of complete digital still image AND video cameras come out of
Japan and Thailand actually.

~~~
devy
Japan has a much higher manufacturing cost (it defeat the purpose of GoPro's
move of evading tariff to reduce manufacturing cost.)

Thailand, on the other hand, has a mature digital imaging electronics
manufacturing industry. Some of the lower end SONY digital cameras/electronics
have been made in Thailand / Malaysia too.

------
snek
Does all this stuff lately where companies are pulling out of china or the US
or the US is arresting heads of companies etc feel like thucydides trap is
just getting closer and closer?

~~~
TangoTrotFox
If you look at the history of the world there was an apparent (and counter
intuitive) acceleration in the rate at which borders and governments were
shifting, largely due to war and revolutions. Then we hit about 1945 and
suddenly - it all but stopped. The only very large change being the fall of
the Soviet Union, which did not involve direct war nor even revolution.

Nukes have made war between major powers a thing of the past, until they can
be contained. 'Modern' nukes make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like a joke. The
'Tsar Bomba' [1] is a nuclear weapon that was tested by Russia in 1961. Its
yield, which was not at full capability, was more than three thousand times as
powerful as Little Boy [2], the nuke that practically destroyed Hiroshima. You
can't win wars against WMD.

A single missile that is failed to be detected or intercepted and you're
looking at fatalities in the tens of millions. And there are thousands of
these weapons operational and ready to fire today. Russia has even been
developing a nuclear torpedo that's designed to create an artificial tsunami
that would produce a devastating radioactive wave greater than 500 meters in
height that would annihilate a target. The reason for a nuclear torpedo is to
bypass all conventional anti-missile ballistic/laser/etc technology.

In my opinion the issue is relatively simple. If China's growth and
development continues at even a fraction of its current pace they're going to
become the most dominant nation in the world. This will change the world in
unimaginable ways. The current powers on top are pretty happy with the status
quo, and aren't ready to say goodnight just yet. Traditional war is not an
option so I expect we're going to see a continuing increase in aggression on
the two new fronts of war: economic and information.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba)

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy)

~~~
Xixi
For a while the trend has been towards smaller nukes (called tactical nukes),
not bigger ones like in the 60s. The rational being that smaller, more precise
nukes have a lower threshold of usability. Destroying Beijing and killing 20M
people is a solution of last recourse, and would be disproportionate in
retaliation to a tactical nuke, or a conventional attack resulting in massive
casualties.

One reference I could find: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2018/jan/09/us-to-loosen...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2018/jan/09/us-to-loosen-nuclear-weapons-policy-and-develop-more-usable-
warheads)

[EDIT] Of course even these tactical nukes are way more powerful than the ones
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

~~~
kkarakk
isn't there an american icbm that is capable of basically "carpet bombing" an
area with these smaller nukes? i think the point of it was to increase
devastation not decrease it since immediate death after a nuke decreases with
distance

------
Tsubasachan
Americans consistently underestimated China out of a sense of arrogance I
think. Becoming factory of the world was never the end game. Just the mid
stage. Xiaoping was planning 50 years ahead. He wasn't thinking that China
would always rely on low payed factory jobs.

Take mobile phones as an example: Chinese brands were knockoffs a couple of
years ago. Now they are innovating and setting standards.

------
sytelus
Go to Amazon and search for go pro and you will see tons of white label
Chinese products at quater of the price with exact same specs. Considering
Amazon accounts for half of eCommerce, I can’t imagine the impact of sales for
GoPro. Another examples are headlamps, computer peripherals, cables,
headphones, hardware tools, coffee makers and so on. There is a massive brand
extinction in progress where Western brands which took comfort in designing at
home and manufacturing in China are confronted with exact same goods much
cheaper. One thing I don’t understand is why companies like Go Pro can’t stop
these clones entering US markets which clearly violated their design
copyrights, patents, specs and sometimes even same sounding trademarks.

------
chrisbennet
I think GoPro has kind of doomed themselves.

1\. Customer service is horrible/nonexistent. [1]

2\. They made their camera app need an internet connection for no good reason
(except to track their customers). [2]

[1] [https://community.gopro.com/t5/Cameras/On-HOLD-for-2-and-
a-H...](https://community.gopro.com/t5/Cameras/On-HOLD-for-2-and-a-HALF-
HOURS/td-p/53237)

[2] [https://community.gopro.com/t5/GoPro-Apps-for-Mobile/Hey-
Thi...](https://community.gopro.com/t5/GoPro-Apps-for-Mobile/Hey-This-is-
UNBELIEVABLE-Can-t-control-GoPro-offline/td-p/24661)

------
krn
> GoPro has been trying to drive demand for its trademark action-cameras -
> once a must-have for surfers, skydivers and other action junkies — as
> competition ramps up.

What are some better alternatives to GoPro available in Europe now? I mean
original brands, not cheaper clones.

~~~
llampx
The Yi action cameras seem to get good reviews, and Sony action cameras have
some of the best image stabilization around. DJI has recently gotten into the
small cam battle with the Osmo Pocket as well (I hesitate to say action cam
because I don't believe it is waterproof or shock proof)

------
fipple
Well you can't unlick a turd. They get all their cameras knocked off for $30
and now they want to move their production out of China?

~~~
whoisjuan
They stated the reason why they are moving their US-bound production out of
China is to avoid financial shortcomings from the current tariff issues.

They even said that the non-US bound production is staying in China.

------
baybal2
One interesting thing to note. You might've seen countless GoPro "clones," and
might've been wondering why GoPro never seemed to assert their rights.

What is said in Shenzhen is that original digital GoPros themselves were an
off the shelf OEM product, and GoPro never bothered to buy the design rights
from their OEM.

Does anybody remember Daisy Photoclip from around year 2002? Their OEM had
their hand in that. And yes, Daisy Photoclip was as Bulgarian as Iphone was
American

~~~
jonknee
There are countless X "clones" for any popular (and even unpopular!) consumer
electronics devices. Apple certainly asserts their rights and yet you can
still buy knockoff iPhones and even visit knockoff physical Apple Stores.

~~~
baybal2
What do you want to say here? I don't understand.

~~~
jotm
Probably that it's a fight one can't "win". Better focus on the brand and
making people aware of it and it's benefits.

~~~
baybal2
My point is that they never bought the right for the design from OEM from whom
they bought their first digital cameras, and that OEM itself never bothered to
limit access to the design as it makes no money to them.

~~~
jkestner
I don't think the rights to a 10-year-old design have much to do with what
GoPro and their copycats are selling now. Knockoffs are everywhere, especially
where the market-defining product has a large margin.

