Google To Acquire Fitbit for $2.1 Billion
by Anton Shilov on November 1, 2019 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartwatch
- Fitbit
Google on Friday announced that that it had reached an agreement to buy Fitbit, a leading maker of advanced fitness trackers. Google stressed that data obtained and processed by Fitbit’s devices will remain in appropriate datacenters and will not go elsewhere.
Under the terms of the agreement, Google will pay $2.1 billion in cash, valuing the company at $7.35 per share. In accordance with the deal, Google will become the sole owner of Fitbit, owning its IP and handling all hardware and software development and distribution.
The takeover of Fitbit is the latest step in Google’s ongoing strategy to make its Android platform more attractive to consumers. Fitbit has more than 28 million of active users, and while the company is far from the lion's share of the wearables market, it has a significantly bigger presence than the small number of Wear OS devices that Google's partners have been able to sell.
Overall, this is is the second major wearables-related acquisition for Google this year. Earlier this year the company also bought technology and R&D personnel from watch maker Fossil.
James Park, co-founder and CEO of Fitbit, said the following:
“Google is an ideal partner to advance our mission. With Google’s resources and global platform, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster, and make health even more accessible to everyone. I could not be more excited for what lies ahead.”
The transaction will be closed in 2020 and from there expect Google to integrate Fibit’s IP into the Android platform.
Related Reading:
- Fitbit Shifts Production Away from China
- Google Announces The Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL: The 2019 Pixels
- Google Acquires Smartwatch Tech and R&D Personnel from Fossil
Source: Google/Fitbit press release
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
21 Comments
View All Comments
svan1971 - Friday, November 1, 2019 - link
"Google stressed that data obtained and processed by Fitbit’s devices will remain in appropriate datacenters and will not go elsewhere" Well that makes me feel much better.HStewart - Friday, November 1, 2019 - link
Fitbit reporting abilities is the only thing that keeps it with me.PeachNCream - Friday, November 1, 2019 - link
"Google stressed that data obtained and processed by Fitbit’s devices will remain in appropriate datacenters and will not go elsewhere."Yeah, whatever you creepers! Like anyone in their right mind would trust those data mining, digital Peeping Toms when they make some vague promise to keep biometrics in someplace they deem appropriate. While Alphabet has done some good stuff for the tech industry in general, the company is built around making private personal information into a profitable commodity. No one is going to believe the latest steaming log they dump out as a press release promising to be responsible.
HStewart - Friday, November 1, 2019 - link
Hopefully they can fix the Ionic Bluetooth syncing - which I thought the latest update work good for a week or so. But when the problems started again and had to restart phone and Ionic many time, I gave it up on it and decided Fitbit is not worth it.I decided to switch over to my Samsung Galaxy watch, it syncing is so much better than Fitbit, but it's reporting needs improvement but Fitbit is not worth the stress.
I be honest, this is probably not good for Google or Fitbit. Fitbit lost me as a customer with over a decade of use.
Lord of the Bored - Saturday, November 2, 2019 - link
Six months later, Google shuts down the Fitbit division.arry - Saturday, November 2, 2019 - link
Difficult to care too much given Fitbit's purchase of the (superior) Pebble brand. What ever happened to that?Lord of the Bored - Sunday, November 3, 2019 - link
Fitbit shut it down six minutes later, I think.lutenic - Monday, November 4, 2019 - link
More like, Google planning to sell fitbit to lenovo for under $100 millionsharath.naik - Saturday, November 2, 2019 - link
There goes another company down the drain. Google has a poor history of doing anything well other than software and search. They bought Motorola, decided they don't want to build phones and sold it for a loss, then decided they want to build pixels, now using someone else. And ended up with middle-tier phones.It's like they have cash to waste and no direction on where they want to go long term. They have google fit app for a long time, but has never been enhanced to include nutrition, to be usefull for anything other than a glorified step counter. Now what do they plan to do with this? get the users into google echosystem and then sell the company again?
svan1971 - Saturday, November 2, 2019 - link
I wonder if they can ruin it like they did waze, perhaps you will get ad based read outs of your biometric data.