Google has announced that it is buying wearable device maker Fitbit for a price of $2.1 billion. While announcing this acquisition, Google’s Senior Vice President of devices and services Rick Osterloh said that the Fitbit purchase is “an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce Made by Google wearable devices into the market.”
With an acquisition price of $2.1 billion, it is one of Google’s largest acquisition. This could help the company boost its presence in the wearables market, which is growing quickly. Even though the company is making hardware including smartphones and smart home devices, it hasn’t been able to do much in smartwatches or wearable devices so far.
The announcement of the deal comes just a day after it was reported that the Mountain View-based giant is in talks with Fitbit for acquisition. However, the acquisition deal is expected to be finalized next year.
Fitbit has confirmed the acquisition and said that the company will still take privacy for health and fitness data seriously, noting that “Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads.” Fitbit co-founder and CEO James Park said: “With Google’s resources and global platform, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster, and make health even more accessible to everyone.”
With Fitbit’s expertise in the wearable hardware market, Google will now have a much stronger foundation to build on for future Android-based wearables devices.
This is the second major wearable technology acquisition for Google. Earlier this year, in January, the company had acquired smartwatch technology from Fossil for $40 million.
