Thanks to a buying spree by traditional fitness and tech companies wanting a slice of the wellness market, Fitbit has emerged as one of just a few large independent players in the space.
Last wearable standing: What fitness startups haven’t been bought?
Who, what, wearables.
Fitbit
Nokia announced Tuesday it plans to buy French fitness device maker Withings for $191 million. That follows a trio of purchases by Under Armour (MapMyFitness, Endomondo and MyFitnessPal) as well as buys from Asics (Runkeeper) and Adidas (Runtastic). Intel also scooped up Basis Science back in 2014 for a reported $100 million.
On the hardware side, that really leaves Fitbit and Jawbone as the remaining big players, with Jawbone’s attention split among a few different kinds of hardware. It makes speakers and earpieces in addition to its Up line of fitness bands.
While that could open up deal possibilities for Fitbit, the company also finds itself now competing against both larger players in the fitness space as well as a range of more full-featured smartwatches. The company has been profitable for its short life as a public company; however, the stock has had a rough last 12 months, losing more than half of its value.
As a refresher on how Fitbit is thinking about its business, here is a video of CEO James Park speaking at last year’s Code/Mobile conference.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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