Google has just requested acquisition of Fitbit for £1.6bn
Google can now encroach on the fitness tracker and smart watch market, interestingly this comes just as the loss making company Fitbit, has just started to look into new areas of technology.
“Google is an ideal partner to advance our mission,” said James Park, co-founder and chief executive of Fitbit.
Fitbit closed on Thursday of last week at $6.18, however Google purchased at $7.35, a premium of 19%.
“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,” said Mr Park, who founded Fitbit 12 years ago.
Fitbit, one of the first fitness tracking retailers, had previously been valued at $4bn in 2015, however shares have fallen since.
Having sold over 100 million devices since coming into the market, in more recent years this has wavered, likely due to the torrent of devices which are available.
Since the admitting of acquisition aims though, the shares have jumped 40%, with scheduled completion date in 2020, pending approval by the board and regulators.
Google will not use health and wellness data from Fitbit for its ads, according to the announcement.
“The deep health and fitness data, coupled with the 28 million active users on the Fitbit platform, offer a tremendous value,” Craig Hallum analysts wrote in a note cited by Reuters.
Despite the deal on the table valuing the company well over value of the shares, this could work well for Alphabet, as they will have immediate access to a huge mass of data.
