Google reached a deal to buy wearable fitness products company (Fitbit Inc.) for roughly $2.1 billion, a move that intensifies the battle among technology giants to capture consumers through devices other than smartphones.

For Google, the deal marks a further push into consumer electronics, an area where it has yet to gain significant traction to complement its massive internet-search and advertising business. It also puts Google in renewed and direct competition with Apple Inc., which this week said rising sales of wearables and related services were becoming a bigger driver of its earnings

Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., said Friday it will acquire the maker of fitness trackers and smartwatches for $7.35 a share in cash, a 19% premium to Fitbit’s closing price Thursday and a more than 70% premium from last week before deal talks were first reported by Reuters.

Fitbit shares rose 16% in morning trading while Alphabet’s shares ticked up slightly.

The deal lands at a moment when Google and other tech giants are under scrutiny on a number of fronts over their competitive practices and dominance of certain businesses

Fitbit makes so-called wearables, or watches and bracelets that primarily track health information like heart rate. It also has a paid subscription service that suggests exercises and other lifestyle changes based on the individual data it collects.

Given that Fitbit collects such myriad and personal data on its users, the deal will also raise issues around consumer privacy. In announcing the acquisition, Google said it would not use Fitbit data to help power its massive online advertising business.

“Similar to our other products, with wearables, we will be transparent about the data we collect and why,” Rick Osterloh, the head of Google’s hardware division, said in a statement. ”We will never sell personal information to anyone. Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads. And we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move, or delete their data.”

The regulatory scrutiny hasn’t brought Silicon Valley deal making to a halt. Google agreed in June to pay $2.6 billion for Looker, a maker of business intelligence and data analytics software, to bolster its cloud business. Facebook Inc. this fall reached a deal to buy brain-computer interface technology startup CTRL-Labs Inc.

For all their promise, wearables as a category have had as many misses as hits. Google several years ago launched a brand of smart glasses that attracted as much ridicule as buyers.

Whereas Fitbit has only 28million active users despite making over 100million sales of its gadgets.

Here are a few acquisitions by Google Inc:

2019: Fitbit
2019: Looker
2017: HTC Pixel
2016: Apigee
2014: Skybox
2014: DeepMind
2014: Nest
2013: Waze
2011: Motorola M
2011: ITA
2009: AdMob
2007: DoubleClick
2006: YouTube
2005: Android
.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/fitbit-to-be-acquired-by-google-llc-11572613473

Just give me my %2.5 commission for facilitating this deal, please.

Hahaha �

Same thing I had in mind.

daddytime:
Just give me my %2.5 commission for facilitating this deal, please.

...

Kodjattson:
Hahaha �

Same thing I had in mind.

Make we go drag dem for our commission oh...we go manage %1.

0.1% sef dey OK

daddytime:


Make we go drag dem for our commission oh...we go manage %1.

K

More ways to track our locations.

You'd think Google bought this company cos it gives profit by sales or something... Nah.
It gathers data. Individual's data.

And data is the new oil.

google the antichrist
acquiring everything like...
'we own the world'

Good Morning lovelies...

Check my siggy

Wish they can acquire Nigeria. No headway since independence

I still blame Lugard and his prostitute girlfriend

Spits at one Nigeria

angelEmade:
google the antichrist
acquiring everything like...

They are antichrist and you are prochrist abi?

Somebody should come retire Lalasticlalaa and Seuun by acquiring Nairaland. They have both run out of young ideas.

Google again always acquiring even sending a competitive down the grave

fatymore:
Good Morning lovelies...

Check my siggy

Good morning dear

Wow.. Google is taking over everything. Imagine you getting 2% of the shares in the company.

God bless the work of my hands. Amen.

So

I don 't know how they' d it
But I see GOOGLE dominating the Internet world for the next 50years

Google again.

congratulations to apple inc,their watch will monopolise smart watch...Google's love for data and info will push people away from Fitbit..

can't wait to see how Google hardware department will kill Fitbit in 2 years time like the way they killed HTC,Motorola,best,soli,ara,pixel tablets, glass,daydream,nexus,cardboard,fibre etc

Business expansion and diversification..

i guess its time to give apple watch a run for its money

By the time Zuckerberg and Facebook lunches thier cryptocurrency lira, google would bow to them .. in this tech war battle of supremacy, i see Zucks beating them at Google


..

goggle is trying to turn to monopoly

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Google and Facebook taking over everything. Why

LegoxMetahuman:
i guess its time to give apple watch a run for its money

keep dreaming......ggole just allowed apple to monopolise the smart watch cos many westerners hate Google like the way they hate Facebook

Cool...Google keeps growing on a daily basis... Kudos to them.

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Queenlovely:
Google again always acquiring even sending a competitive down the grave

when last did Google send competitors to grace?...the reverse has been the case

when am done with this okpa startup I'll just sale it to Google.

Google Google!

daddytime:
Just give me my %2.5 commission for facilitating this deal, please.

If that is where you put your %, then you're definitely not part of the deal.