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This morning, Alphabet announced that they had acquired Fitbit for $2.1 billion. The wearable technology giant will be working within Google, with the goal of creating a new kind of fitness tech. Earlier this week, there were reports from Reuters that the two companies were in talks for the acquisition.
Google Senior Vice President, Devices & Services Rick Osterloh published a blog post detailing what the company’s goals are with the acquisition.
By working closely with Fitbit’s team of experts, and bringing together the best AI, software and hardware, we can help spur innovation in wearables and build products to benefit even more people around the world.
Fitbit released its own statement on the acquisition. They explain how using Google’s library of technology can help them continue to innovate with wearable fitness products. James Park, Co-Founder and CEO of Fitbit, says he, “couldn’t be more excited for what lies ahead.”
In that same press release, Fitbit reassured its users that they will still be platform-agnostic even though they are now owned by the Android OS maker.
The Fitbit acquisition will start Google’s next major foray into wearables
Google’s first swing in the wearable technology realm was a miss. The Wear OS software is impressive, however, it just could not compete with the popular Apple Watch. By utilizing Fitbit’s experience within this particular tech space and working with their teams, Google can start implementing them into their own line of wearables.
At the beginning of the year, Google had purchased a type of technology from Fossil for $40M. However, the purchase was based on another type of technology that Fossil had obtained due to its acquisition of Misfit back in 2015.
The question that is on everyone’s mind is, what is next? Unfortunately, neither company has released anything regarding what the new wearables will look like.
What do you think? Excited to see what the two companies can create together? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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