Google reportedly beat Facebook and offered twice as much to acquire Fitbit for $2.1 billion

Google.
(Image credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Google doesn't just want a place in your home. It reportedly fought off Facebook to earn a spot on your wrist.

On Friday, after a week of rumors, Google announced it will be acquiring Fitbit, the wearable fitness trackers, for $2.1 billion. This latest move comes after Google's $40 million purchase of Fossil's smartwatch technology in January, reports CNBC, and shows the tech giant's "aggressive attempt" to up their game in the wearables race, The New York Times observes.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Google's presence in the wearables market is limited to Wear OS, which failed to sway Apple Watch users, CNET notes. And while Fitbit was the closest competitor to Apple Watch — which owns about half of the global wearables market — Fitbit has been struggling this year, reporting sinking sales in its July earnings, the Times reports.

"With Google's resources and global platform, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster, and make health even more accessible to everyone," Fitbit co-founder and CEO James Park told CNN Business. As a reality check for the celebrating tech companies, Wired predicts that the acquisition "will attract the attention of antitrust regulators" before the deal is finalized in 2020.

Explore More

Ramisa Rob is a web intern at The Week. She is also an investigative reporting fellow at Brian Ross Investigates, and has previously worked for the The Daily Star. A recent graduate of the University of Michigan, she is currently pursuing her Masters at NYU Tisch.