Google, the leading web search company, is well-known for acquiring multiple companies and businesses to achieve a higher goal. In 2011, it bought Motorola mobile business to make entry into the smartphone market. Google also bought platforms like YouTube to enhance its revenue in the year 2006.
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This time, Google is featured in the headlines because of another similar acquisition. Google has bought Fitbit for an amount of $2.1 billion. The reason behind this move is the increasing use of smart wearables. People like to wear smartwatches and fitness trackers with the capability of connecting wirelessly with their smartphones.
Some big players in this business are Xiaomi, Samsung, and Apple. Huawei, one of the leading smartphone sellers, is also competing to make its mark in the business of wearables. According to recent stats, Xiaomi owns the biggest share in the wearable market, with a 17.3% market share. Apple follows Xiaomi with the second largest market share. Fitbit also owns 10% of the wearables market.
Google acquiring Fitbit means Google is ready to jump in the smart wearables market to take on big players like Xiaomi, Apple, and Samsung. Many people like to use Fitbit wearables because of their reliability. Fitbit is one of the pioneers of smart wearables business. It has a variety of fitness trackers and smartwatches to offer.
The new product by Fitbit was its new watch ‘Versa 2’, which was introduced in the market in 2019. This watch comes with Alexa, the smart voice assistant by Amazon Inc, online payments system, and music storage as some noteworthy features.
Privacy Concerns:
The acquisition of Fitbit by Google would provide diversity in options for wearable users, but is there something to be worried about?
Google and Fitbit are under severe criticism by authorities and general users because of their past records. Google was alleged to monitor the activity of users in the past and then using it for various purposes. Similarly, Fitbit was also criticized because of privacy concerns, as it was found that sexual activity was publicly accessible through the internet. The data was collected by fitness trackers and smartwatches manufactured by Fitbit.
This acquisition deal has raised many concerns regarding the privacy and safety of consumer’s data. However, Google has stated that the collected data regarding health and fitness from Fitbit wearables will not be used for Google ads. Google would provide the user with options to review, modify, or delete their wellness and health data for ensured privacy.
Quality Wearable:
Google was investing in its own Wear OS and Google Fit for long. The acquisition of Fitbit would enable Google to come up with more quality wearables to compete with the products of Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi. This would also give diversity in options for general users when it comes to wearables.
Fitbit was amongst the pioneers of the smart wearables industry. The experience of the Fitbit team and finance from Google would make it possible for people to see a new era of wearables with improved technology and multiple possibilities. This would also raise the benchmark of wearables technology, which would urge other players to bring some new products for competition.
This would give rise to a sense of competition and the introduction of new smart wearable technologies, which is ultimately going to be beneficial for the users.
An Alarm for Competitors:
Since Google enjoys to be at the top in various segments of technology industry like web search platform and cloud storage, it goes without saying that with the acquisition of Fitbit, Google has raised threat alarms for wearable market giants, especially Apple.
Apple enjoys a great deal of business revenue through the sale of its smartwatches. Apple has just earned a massive amount of money in the third quarter of the year 2019 when the sale of Apple watch increased to 6.8 million pieces worldwide.
But now, with Google and Fitbit joining hands in the wearable business, Apple and other big players in the wearable industry might find themselves in hot water because of the quality manufacturing of Fitbit and advanced technology by Google.
This could be a huge threat to the business of already established smart wearables sellers, and they might see a considerable reduction in their market share.
Wrapping Up:
Google has developed a habit of being on the top in every technology, the acquisition of Fitbit is the succession of this habit as Google looks to make its mark in the wearables industry with a bang. Some people are raising questions regarding privacy breaches, but Google has assured the users that their personal data is in safe hands.
This recent development may prove a blessing for users as they might see a considerable amount of advancement in wearable technology. While this might make users happy, but it would certainly hurt already established players in the wearable market, and they might see a considerable reduction in their market share.
The conclusion of this deal would happen in the initial months of the year 2020, and then people might see a bamboozled wearable market with plenty of options. Until then, we have to wait. Let’s wait and watch!
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Best regards,
Demir Dencker