Recently, the news of Alphabet to buy Fitbit is making rounds. The news came a month after Fitbit put itself on the auction block. It was also said that Amazon may also be the potential buyer of Fitbit. However, it seems Alphabet is making its way more aggressively towards buying the company that owns a number of wearable fitness devices.
Alphabet to buy Fitbit, what does it mean to Google?
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, certainly wants to own an array of various fields in its fleet. Wearable technology is one field Google had explored before, but could not gather much success. Now, Alphabet is trying to put its firm foot in the wearable technology market by offering to buy Fitbit. It may give Google’s wearable technology Wear OS a better place.
Wear OS was released back in 2014. It is Google’s OS developed for smartwatches and other wearables. Wear OS also integrates Google Assistant and mobile notifications into a smartwatch. However, Wear OS wearables could not capture much of the market with stronger opponents such as Apple Watch and Samsung’s Tizen-powered Galaxy Watch. Even the third-party manufacturers had largely avoided Google’s wearable platform in favor of Apple Watch and Galaxy Watch.
If the offer of Alphabet to buy Fitbit turns into reality, Google will take the #2 place in the smartwatch market; Apple being on the top.
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Much before the news of Alphabet to buy Fitbit, Google had purchased smartwatch technology from Fossil. Based on this technology, a new smartwatch, Pixel, was supposed to be unveiled by Google this year. However, reports came by saying that the device was discarded by Google’s hardware chief Rick Osterloh. It certainly must have caused a lot of stir in the company, because the new smartwatch technology had cost Google nearly $40 million.
With Alphabet to buy Fitbit, Google would have two different smartwatch platforms. With Fitbit having a significant market share, Google can get rid of Wear OS and move more aggressively in the market of wearable technology.