The End Of Fitbit

Popular fitness tracker company Fitbit was recently purchased by search and advertising giant Google for $2.1 billion.

- Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Google hopes that this acquisition, as well as previous investments in wearable companies like Fossil, will help it kickstart its flagging Android Wear OS market. It's a classic case of throwing money at a problem for Google, who also bought parts of Motorola and HTC to create its Pixel division, as well as Nest to create the foundation for its smart home product line.

Google isn't new to wearables and smartwatches. It launched Android Wear (later Wear OS) shortly before the Apple Watch came to market. Various companies shipped Wear OS smartphones, but the software and the hardware lacked a lot of focus.

By buying Fitbit, which also includes assets from smartwatch originator Pebble (Fitbit purchased Pebble three years ago), Google has good foundations for creating a line of proper Android-powered wearables.

Fitbit floundered