The fitness tracker maker is looking to acquire smartwatch pioneer Pebble
In what is being touted as a really, REALLY cheap deal, Fitbit is close to finalizing a deal with beleaguered smartwatch manufacturer Pebble for a reported $40M. If accepted, its understood that the deal will be for IP – intellectual property and software – only. The Pebble brand would be slowly phased out, with its all of its products shut down and discontinued over time.
Pebble laid off 25% of its workforce in March of this year. Pebble has also been having some very serious product issues during 2016. They’ve introduced three new smartwatches in July of 2016 – the Pebble 2, the Pebble Time 2 and the Pebble Core. In August 2016, they released a software update for their Pebble Health feature. None of these moves has helped them get past the product issues they’ve been having.
While Fitbit has emphatically stated that they are unfazed by Apple’s dominance in the smartwatch space, Apple’s sales of its Apple Watch has declined 51.6% as of the third quarter of 2016, according to the IDC. Unfortunately, this development hasn’t helped Pebble sales one bit.
