“Google owner Alphabet Inc has made an offer to acquire U.S. wearable device maker Fitbit Inc, as it eyes a slice of the crowded market for fitness trackers and smartwatches, people familiar with the matter said on Monday,” Greg Roumeliotis and Paresh Dave report for Reuters:
There is no certainty that the negotiations between Google and Fitbit will lead to any deal, the sources said, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential.
Fitbit shares rose 27% on the news, giving the company a market capitalization of $1.4 billion. Alphabet shares rose 2% to $1,293.49.
Fitbit cut its 2019 revenue forecast in July, blaming disappointing sales of its newly launched cheapest smartwatch Versa Lite… Reuters had reported last month that Fitbit was speaking to investment bank Qatalyst Partners about exploring a sale.
MacDailyNews Take: If Alphabet snaps up Fitbit, we’ll never get our Fitbit steps unified with Apple Watch!
We’d like to see Apple scoop up Fitbit for the only thing they have of value – their siloed steps data and installed base – and free that steps data so Fitbit wearers can move up to Apple Watch and still share and compete in steps with their friends and family members. — MacDailyNews, September 18, 2019
Fitbit is the Palm of the twenty-tens. (And, BTW, we type that with Fitbits on our wrists. Apple should buy Fitbit just for the user base, merge Fitbit’s steps and other data into the Apple Watch, and be done with it. Then we could use our Apple Watches to compete with Fitbit-wearing friends and family who haven’t yet made the leap to Apple Watch and ditch these Fitbit Flex bracelets that we don’t want to wear, keep charged, etc. The only thing keeping Fitbit alive is their legacy user base and sequestering their step data.) — MacDailyNews, January 25, 2018
Alpha-bits 🤣
Microsoftian.
Oh Good.. More Crapware to round out their Product Lines!
It will make a perfect complement to Motorola.
Well that’s the end of Fitbit.
I wish someone would acquire my fat butt.
A quick way for Google to acquire the fitness, health, and nutrition/diet data of millions of people in one fell swoop.
Also: no business sense in Apple buying Fitbit. They get the data, but they sure as heck won’t continue releasing or supporting $100-200 Fitbits that compete with the Apple Watch, so that entire customer segment would disappear within a year or two as they go to Android.
It will fail just like the Motorolla purchase. I give them 3 years before they sell it to some unsuspecting company…for a total loss.