IDC says Fitbit is the world's top vendor of fitness trackers for the first quarter of 2015, with Chinese Xiaomi in a strong second thanks to its $15 Mi Band. Overall, the world market for trackers was 11.4 million, up 200 percent from the year previous. IDC analysts say that 40 percent of trackers sold in the first quarter sold for under $100 -- not surprising given the … [Read more...]
Fitbit Prices IPO at $14 to $16, Raising $350M at $3.1B Valuation
Fitbit has updated its S-1 filing, preparatory to going public, saying it expects to price the nearly 40 million shares it will sell at between $14 and $16. Of the shares going on the market, 22.4 million of them are being sold by the company; the other 7.5 million are being sold by existing shareholders. At the midpoint of the selling price, the IPO will add $336 million to … [Read more...]
Jawbone Sues IPO-Bound Fitbit, Claims “Plundering” of Employees and Info
Just as Fitbit, leader in the fitness band market, is suiting up for its $100 million IPO, rival Jawbone has hit it with a particularly juicy lawsuit, claiming that Fitbit was systematically poaching its employees, who brought confidential information along with them. The complaint, filed in California Superior Court, claims that Fitbit contacted a third of Jawbone's … [Read more...]
New Canalys Figures Show Fitbit Leading Wearables Market — For Now
Canalys, which has a better-than-most handle on the size and shape of the consumer wearables market, is out with its 1Q15 numbers, and they show Fitbit maintaining its lead in a growing market. Overall, the research company said the wearable band market grew 150 percent year over year, with more than 7 million units shipped in the first quarter. The company did not publicly … [Read more...]
Inside the Fitbit S-1, Worrying About What’s Not Said
Deconstructing financial documents is a particular skill, and RockHealth gets very deep on Fitbit's registration to go public. One of the major points that Fitbit avoids talking about, RockHealth notes, is anything about user engagement and churn. Because product sales have been increasing so fast, it's hard to get a handle on how fast Fitbit trackers are hitting the junk … [Read more...]
Fitbit To Add Cycling Support to Surge, Multi-device Support to Apps
Most fitness trackers don't do a very good job of tracking cycling; you don't move your arms very much while biking, so it's hard to measure with step-based accelerometers. Fitbit, though, just announced that they'll be adding cycling support on its high-end Surge tracker within the month. The Surge will use its GPS to track your ride. The bad news is that GPS sucks power … [Read more...]
JAMA Says Fitbit Makes The Most Accurate Fitness Tracker, But It’s Not The One You Think
The apparent inaccuracy of wearable fitness trackers has long bugged us, but we had been unable to put real scientific numbers to it. Fortunately, there are real researchers in the world, and they've established scientifically that most of the step-counting data you get from trackers is pretty bad. A letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association -- as mainstream … [Read more...]
On the Other Hand, Gizmodo Likes the New Fitbits
We wrote the other day about the less-than-stellar review that Re/code gave the new fitness trackers from Fitbit. In the interest of fairness and completeness, we also note that Gizmodo has a set of reviews, and they like the Surge and the Charge HR much more than Re/code did, finding them respectably accurate. Gizmodo dinged the entry level Charge for a dreadful clasp, and … [Read more...]
Fortune Magazine Takes a Tough Look at Jawbone
Fortune Magazine has a well-reported and cold-eyed look at Jawbone, maker of (among other things) the upcoming UP3 fitness band. It describes the company as a 16-year-old startup that skates from one rapidly commoditized success to another -- Bluetooth headsets, wireless speakers, and now fitness bands. The picture it paints is of an innovative company that hasn't quite figured … [Read more...]
The Ass of a Jawbone: UP3 Misses Christmas
We saw a lot of wearables products promising a holiday delivery. Here's a big one that missed: Jawbone won't ship its $180 Up3 fitness band until after Christmas. Ouch. Bloomberg has a lot of background about Jawbone and its position among venture capitalists (but doesn't mention that Fitbit far outsells it). When the UP3 was announced in November, the company said it would … [Read more...]