Google announced the purchase of Fitbit, a company known for its fitness trackers and smart watches. About this vice president of Google Rick Osterloh reports on the company's blog.
Fitbit told about the transaction value. The company will be bought at $ 7.85 per share, that is, the total value of Fitbit is estimated at $ 2.1 billion.
According to the terms of the deal, Fitbit will become part of Google, but without brand elimination. The Verge recalls Nest: the company has become part of Alphabet, but it exists as if separate from Google, releasing products for the “smart” home under its own brand.
Rumors about the sale of the company appeared in late September. Then Reuters reported that Fitbit is considering such a possibility. The list of potential buyers included Alphabet, the parent company of Google. But even as part of a rumor, it was delivered at the level of “Fitbit would like to be bought by a company like Alphabet”:
news
Rumor: Fitbit, a manufacturer of fitness trackers and smart watches, is thinking about selling a business
Ilya Kichaev
September 23, 2019
What does Google give?
As with Nest, Google is about to enter a relatively new market for wearable devices. This is directly stated by Rick Osterloch in the company's blog:
In recent years, Google has been successful with partners in Wear OS and Google Fit. However, we see an opportunity to invest in the development of Wear OS, as well as to bring wearable devices Made by Google to the market.
Rick Osterloch
Google Vice President
This seems to be the first officially recognized fact that Google wants to produce its own smart watches. And, to be honest, doing this together with a company that is one of the leading (after Apple) manufacturers of smart watches in the world is much more pleasant than without it.
Interestingly, this is already the second purchase of Google in this category for the second year. At the beginning of the year, the company bought a certain “smart watch technology” of the Fossil Group:
news
It seems that Google will thoroughly take up the “smart” watch
Ilya Kichaev
January 18, 2019
It is not yet known what will happen with Fitbit products. If Google is going to develop its Wear OS in this way, then the company's own operating system will disappear into oblivion, and a kind of Google Pixel Watch by Fitbit will enter the market.
What does Fitbit give?
Despite the fact that the company produces the most popular smart watches after Apple Watch, it had problems with finances. And the release of Fitbit Versa Lite at the beginning of this year did not benefit the company – the model was unsuccessful, because it costs $ 160, and this is the oldest for 200 bucks.
At the same time, for 40 bucks you get built-in memory, where you can store music and not take a smartphone with you for training.
Yes, and fight with Samsung, advancing on the heels, nicer at Google under the pretext of “Canon Watch on Wear OS”.
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Chief editor of the blog – Erika J. Wells .
