I'm not saying they are geared to teenagers, just that this is another market they are opening up with things like Portrait and live streaming. I made a point to say that the cameras are designed for, " young athletic adventurer people. Surfing, Skating, Mountain Biking, Motorcross, Rock Climbing, WingSuit, Parachuting, Scuba, Windsailing, .... ". Most of these activities are dominated by the 20-30 year olds.
As far as 8K, this is ridiculous. There is a reason 8K cameras cost $60,000. It's not the markup that drives this price, it's the cost of the processor, sensor, lens, motherboard, heat sink cooling mechanism, etc... Sure, if GoPro can get true 8K in a sub $500 camera that doesn't melt when you record more than 5 minutes, then yes, people will go ape sht for it. Ambarella announced the H3 SoC, which is capable of 8K/30fps, back in January of 2017 and SocioNext has 8K on their roadmap for this year, so I do think it's coming. Yi may in fact come out with it first, but the reality is, most people still don't know who or what Yi is.
It's easy to live in a bubble where we think the rest of the world shares our thoughts and knowledge. It's also easy to over-inflate issues, problems, needs, or what the market wants.
GoPro is by far a major name in action cameras. In many ways, GoPro IS the name in action cameras. In general, people don't research Action cameras, look at all the competing products, and then decide on GoPro. People become interested in purchasing a GoPro and sometimes stumble upon the competing brands while searching for the GoPro. These people have no idea who Yi or SJCAM are or what they sell.
Sony is a MUCH bigger name than Yi, yet when people think of Sony they don't think action camera. You and I might, but most people have no idea what the sony fdr x3000 is or even that Sony makes an action camera. In fact, imaging products and solutions (including all of the Sony cameras and sensors) makes up less than 8% of Sony's business.
Garmin, who makes a good competitor to the GoPro lineup with their Virb cameras, has barely any market share. Garmin moved action cameras into there Automotive/Mobile segment in 2016. This segment includes all of their automotive products including GPS devices and yet it still only makes up about 24% of their total sales. Garmin cameras are a very small fraction of that 24%.
It's true that name alone doesn't ensure keeping the majority of market share. I remember when if you wanted to make duplicates of a document people would say they needed a "xerox" whether or not they were using a Xerox copier. In part, this has happened to GoPro. I can mount just about any camera to my surfboard and have people ask me if it's a GoPro. They use the term not so much to ask about the brand, but rather if it's a waterproof action camera.
Is the Hero7 bringing enough features to get people to upgrade? Like I said before, probably not. Then again, this was the same thing people were saying about the Hero5 and it turned out to be GoPro's number one selling camera. Turns out it wasn't the resolution/frame rate that sold people, but rather the other features of the camera. When it comes to image, the Hero4 and Hero5 are identical.
More importantly though, GoPro would be foolish to keep innovating for people to upgrade from last years model to the next. As with all things, from cars, TV's, Phones, and cameras, you want to change just enough to spark interest, gain new customers, get upgrades from older models (Hero, Hero2, Hero3, Hero4, Hero5) and leave enough room for improvement for next years model.
I doubt there will be a lot of upgrades from the Hero6. Not because the Hero7 doesn't have 8K, but because the Hero6 is a very good camera. The people who got their feet wet with the Hero (2018) and Hero5 will want to upgrade, as will owners of all the other previous models. With the new lineup GoPro can continue to bring new people in at different levels of need.
