Moving out of the consumer market and into medical devices also carries enormous overheads. It is hard to make huge profits when making commodity hardware. There has also been continued criticisms about the supposed health benefits that have been advanced by Fitbit and others resulting from wearables.įitbit was always going to struggle. Programs introduced by employers and insurance companies to incentivise the wearing of devices in return for reduced premiums have been met with suspicion about the potential abuse of this data. It also hasn’t been able to solve the problem of customers giving up on wearing their devices within a short period of time.Īt the same time, there has been a general concern about the security and privacy of data collected by these devices. It has not been able to introduce any new advances in its technology beyond the features of counting steps and measuring heart rate.
The fact that Fitbit is seeing sales decline is not really surprising. Even this statistic may be misleading however because it combines pure fitness trackers such as the models made by Fitbit, with smartwatches like the Apple Watch which customers may buy for its non-fitness features. Its share price is around 90% down on its peak of US $51 in 2015.įitbit doesn’t see its fortunes changing much in 2016 as it competes in a wearables market that is seeing little to no growth. Sales are down, and last week, Fitbit reported a financial loss and announced it would be laying off 6% of its staff. Unfortunately, the revolution never happened and Fitbit itself has now hit a wall. Its launch as a public company was at a point when the hype of wearables was at a peak with claims of the technology bring about a revolution in healthcare. As the market leader, Fitbit has always been regarded as being synonymous with wearables in general.