Fitbit and Jawbone have been arch rivals for quite some time now. The two have been some of the biggest names in wearables, specifically fitness wearables. However, Fitbit has proven to be the undisputed leader, while Jawbone has continued to struggle in the market. Jawbone has been struggling so much that a report surfaced last year stating that the company was not able to pay one of their parts suppliers. Which is a pretty big deal, seeing one needs to pay their partners so they can keep creating the product to sell and bring in money for the company. Now there’s a new report coming out that Fitbit had attempted to purchase Jawbone last year, but ultimately offered too little for the deal to be agreed on.
According to a report out of the Financial Times today, Fitbit did try to purchase Jawbone, but it didn’t happen. An exact amount was not disclosed, but it was disclosed that Fitbit offered much less than Jawbone was willing to take. Fitbit had reportedly offered to buy Jawbone’s assets and then settle any legal battles that the two companies were having with each other. Fitbit and Jawbone were in the midst of plenty of legal battles in 2016, one of which Fitbit lost, while another one Jawbone won.
Fitbit has been buying all sorts of companies as of late. Of course, the big news in the acquisition front for Fitbit was buying Pebble. Many know Pebble from Kickstarter, it was one of the first companies to produce a smartwatch that didn’t do too much, and actually had great battery life (meaning close to a week, and not barely a day). Fitbit purchased the company for an undisclosed amount of money and will be implementing their software into their existing Fitbit wearables. Then Fitbit picked up Vector Watch, which was a bit of a surprising one, seeing as they had just nabbed Pebble, but it shows that the company is definitely looking towards smartwatches, or at the least, implementing smartwatch features into their current wearables. Fitbit does have a smartwatch of sorts, available already, in the Fitbit Blaze and Surge.