Google jumps into fitness tracking bands business with Fitbit acquisition. In a blog post, Google announced the acquisition of Fitbit, the wearable company, for a whopping $2.1 billion. The buyout has been reported by Reuters a few days back. They claimed that Google is looking to buy Fitbit.
Google’s SVP of devices and services Rick Osterloh called this acquisition as “an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce Made by Google wearable devices into the market.”
The deal will make Fitbit as part of Google, just like Nest, which is now part of Google. With the purchase of Fitbit, the users might have this privacy concern that Google might use their data, but Fitbit detailed in a separate press release that “Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads.”
The future of Wear OS looks promising after this deal since Google has already been working on revamping an OS for wearables. With Fitbit, they can do more with the Wear OS and build something promising on solid hardware that Fitbit has to offer.
This will not only make Google strong in the hardware department but will also enable Fitbit devs to learn more from devs at Google and make their products smarter. It’s a good sign that Google is diving into wearable business since Apple is topping the fitness wearables with Apple Watch, Google needs a solid product with its Wear OS to challenge the throne.