Google is Acquiring Fitbit for $2.1B

• Google’s parent company, Alphabet is buying Fitbit for $2.1B.
• The acquisition is Google’s second great purchase of the year.
• The company will pay $7.35 per share in cash to Fitbit.
• This deal will bring Google in direct competition to Apple in wearable segment.

Google has just disclosed that they are acquiring Fitbit, the famed maker of wearable fitness-centric sensors.

The tech giant, as already announced by Reuters, was in talks with Fitbit and have now cracked the deal for $2.1B. They will pay this amount to Fitbit in cash in the form of $7.35 per share to the company. Also, they have taken the decision of not using the health and fitness data of Fitbit users for Google ads.

Now, while this is all about the acquisition deal, what’s taking over the Internet is the reason.

Fitbit, which recently introduced a premium subscription of $10, agreed to this deal because of the fact that Google’s software skills and developer support will help Fitbit’s smartwatches including the Versa get smarter through Android’s deeper software integration. 

On the other side, Google saw it as a great opportunity to make their strong presence in the fitness and wearable app development industry.

Google, as you might be familiar with, was making various efforts (but failing) to gain limelight in the wearable market with its WearOS platform for years. They bought an anonymous smartwatch technology from Fossil based on tech for $40M, which the latter acquired on buying wearable making firm, Misfit in 2015. 

However, this action was not enough to become the pole star of the wearable industry. So, to boost their brand presence and set the foundation of their own Android-integrated wearable devices, the tech giant has taken this big step. 

“Fitbit purchase is an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce ‘Made by Google’ wearable devices into the market,” said Rick Osterloh, Google SVP of devices and services.

Besides, they made this deal with the hope of finding an ease in integrating Google’s existing Google Fit apps onto fitness tracking devices. Something that will help Google emerge out as an alternative to Apple Watch’s deep fitness tracking integration with iPhone. And this way, aid them to shake up Apple’s dominance in the fitness and wearable industry.

The next step for an entrepreneur (knowing how the market is set to flourish massively) would be to know the wearable app development cost estimate and get started with their journey.