Google has announced that they will be buying fitness tracking company Fitbit for $2.1 billion dollars. Rick Osterloh, SVP of services and devices in Google has mentioned that the acquisition is an ‘opportunity to invest in Wear OS and as a platform for introducing Made By Google products’.
The deal will put Fitbit directly under Google as its parent company, similar to when Nest was wholly bought. Fitbit will become a separate division within the corporate structure.
Fitbit, in a separate press release states that they will continue to take customer privacy seriously and won’t be sharing wellness and health data for Google ads.
The acquisition will be beneficial to both companies in terms of breaking in the wearables market and getting developer support and software integration within the Android platform. At the same time, it could mean some serious competition to the Apple Watch.
Google’s purchase of Fitbit is just one of many investments the Mountain View-based company has made. In January, they purchased smartwatch technology from Fossil when it bought out wearable company Misfit in 2015.
