The GoPro camera rig that was deisgned to capture first person cinematography is worn by an actor during the screening of 'Hardcore Henry' during the 2016 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival. (Photo : Getty Images/Mike Windle)
Action camera manufacturer GoPro issued a press statement on Nov. 8, Tuesday, saying that it will recall 2,500 units of its new Karma drones after they reported power failures. According to the company, a small number of incidences where the drones were found to malfunction during flight.
The company launched the Karma drones equipped with two new cameras in September 2016 and available on the market since Oct. 23. The new drones were on sale for just 16 days, during which GoPro sold 2,500 machines. Though the company has decided to recall all the drones, the cameras have not been affected by the recall.
While admitting that they received reports that many drones suffered power loss malfunction, GoPro did not cite the precise number of customers who experienced the problem. "We found several incidences where consumers experienced irregular behavior by their Karma but it's hard to say the exact cause was power malfunctions," the press statement pointed out.
The recall comes at a critical juncture for the company. The company had just lowered its holiday forecasts from $650 million to $600 million in revenue for the fourth quarter of the current fiscal, Reuters reported. While analysts attributed the regular estimate of $666.14 million to production hassles with the company's Hero 5 Ultra HD Action Camera, GoPro said it missed 23% revenue expectations in its latest quarterly earnings.
In its press statement, GoPro announced that it plans to resume Karma drone shipments once they resolve the issue. According to the company, it will reimburse the purchase price of the drones to the customers instead of replacing the devices.
The company announced that the recall is only for the Karma drone. HERO5 Black and Karma Grip equipped with the device are not affected by the recall. However, if any customer purchased the Karma drone bundle package, including HERO5 Black and Karma Grip, they need to return these cameras with their Karma drone for a full refund.
The GoPro management may be too concerned to set things right and get the drones back on the shelves after necessary tweaks, the news agency quoted Oppenheimer & Co analyst Andrew Uerkwitz as saying. The analyst further said that the company may have possibly minimized the damage caused by the faulty drones by issuing the recall quite early. "People who will see the recall are probably harder core GoPro users and to shake their trust is probably going to be a little more difficult," Uerkwitz told the news agency.
Watch the test flight of GoPro Karma drone below:
