FIT - Will Regulators Derail Google's $2.1 Billion Takeover of Fitbit?
In early November, Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google announced that it would buy Fitbit (NYSE: FIT) for $2.1 billion -- a steep discount compared to the wearable maker's $4 billion valuation after its IPO in mid-2015.
But the takeover wasn't surprising. Google needed to expand its hardware and digital healthcare ecosystem, and Fitbit has been struggling with sluggish sales, contracting gross margins, and brutal competition from bigger rivals like Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).
It would be easy for Google to gather data from Fitbit's users since Fitbit already tethered its devices to Google's healthcare cloud last year. Google could also develop its long-rumored "Pixel Watch" with Fitbit's technology, or integrate Fitbit's App Gallery into Wear OS.