Google Buys Health Tech Pioneer Fitbit for $2.1 Bn

By 2020, $24 billion will be available for healthcare tech spend and it will lead to the formation of a more competitive market. With Google's purchase of the pioneer of this industry, there will be several implications affecting the companies as well as the consumers.

BY HARSHIT GUPTA | 2 min read

Google has entered the fitness tracker business by acquiring Fitbit, the wearable tech company, for $2.1 billion. This news came after days of rumours and reports. After the announcement on last friday, the shares of Fitbit surged a massive 17%.

Fitbit has been a great product with unique look and trusted hardware. It has excelled in battery life, heart rate tracker, sleep monitor and other health tech components. It is greatly admired and hugely popular but also has great competitors as the wearables market is highly competitive. Apple watch dominates the higher strata of the market whereas Xiaomi has been undercutting Fitbit's trackers. On the other hand, Google have their own WearOS but no smartwatch. There had been rumours about a Pixel Smartwatch but there is no update about it. WearOS needs certain degree of improvements as it lacks a strong fitness component. With that, WearOS would become a good software. And with Google's software and Fitbit's hardware, this product can achieve new heights.

Keeping all that aside, we look at Google's track record of acquisitions over the years. The truth is that the record has been awful. Acquisitions of Motorola Mobility (2011), Waze (2013), Nest (2014), HTC (2017) have given mostly negative returns to the tech giant.

Another matter of concern for the users is "privacy". Fitbit tracks the data of 28 million users. Although Google has claimed that the user data would not be used or sold for Google ads, a lot of users took to social media to complain about this matter upon hearing the news of the takeover. Google already has tons of data of people including search, location history, habits, hobbies, interests, age, and other demographics. However, the users have the option to delete their account. They would be given a 7 day period to change their decision. After that, it would take 90 days to delete all the information.

In conclusion, with Google's acquisition of Fitbit, their can be new strides in the product despite Google's acquisition record and can emerge as a better competitor but it may come at the cost of the privacy of the existing users.