Tag: fitbit

New Fitbit band could function as a mobile wallet.

Major developers of simple yet popular fitness trackers are constantly looking for new ways to make their products stand out from the competition. Last week, one of these top developers, Fitbit Inc., revealed that it has purchased wearable payment technology assets from Coin, a Silicon Valley startup that manufactures devices which use near-field communication (NFC) technology, reported Reuters.

Fitbit is not the first maker of wearables to offer a mobile payment option via its device.

Although Fitbit is the leader of the wearable devices market, it isn’t the first developer of this tech to implement a mobile payment solution into its product. Jawbone, its main competitor, has already partnered with American Express Co, enabling Jawbone users to pay via its premium fitness band UP4.

The new deal that Fitbit has made with Coin will help it to remain on top of its game and enter the NFC technology market. This is an important move for the company because NFC continues to gain in popularity with retailers and users. Currently, NFC has been prominently featured in Apple Watch and other mobile devices as well as in well-known payment services including Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Pay.

Fitbit’s wearable payment technology plan is being reserved for future devices.

While Fitbit has announced the acquisition of Coin’s assets, the dominating wearables maker does not have any plans to incorporate the NFC tech into any of its products this year. However, the acquisition does give the company the advantage of developing an impressive NFC payments solution that is likely to be implemented into its future devices.

James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit, said in a statement that the company is “focused on making wearable devices that motivate people to reach their health and fitness goals, and that also make their lives easier with the smart features they need most,” adding that “Coin has been one of the key innovators in advanced payment solutions.”

Park said that adding the wearable payment technology into their products will further Fitbit’s strategy of making its products “an indispensible part of people’s lives.”

According to a recent report from BI Intelligence, the company’s wearables will stay at the top of the market.

The wearable technology market has been growing in a direction that had not been predicted by many industry analysts, especially when it comes to the impact that smartwatches were supposed to have, following the release of the Apple Watch.

Fitness trackers have remained well in the lead of wearables and it is Fitbit that has been keeping ahead of the pack.

Fitbit recently reported its Q4 2015 revenue as being $712 million. That figure was hugely greater than the average prediction from analysts, which had been $648 million. Throughout all of last year, the company brought in a massive revenue of $1.86 billion. To do this, it sold 8.2 million of its wearable technology devices in the last quarter, bringing its total number of sales for 2015 to 21.4 million. According to analysts, that figure will only continue to rise, this year as the company adds more products to its offerings, such as its very own smartwatch, the Fitbit Blaze, as well as a more fashion-focused fitness band, the Fitbit Alta.

Currently, Fitbit’s wearable technology products are most popular in the United States, where it generated 75 percent of its revenue.

That said, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, combined, made up 12 percent of the company’s revenue. Still, that represents a 191 percent year over year growth in Q4 for those regions, revealing a tremendous rise in popularity within those parts of the world. This indicates that 2016 may be seeing action in far greater markets than the United States. According to BI Intelligence research analyst, Jonathan Camhi, the company’s wearables are seeing considerable traction being gained outside the U.S.

Last year, the company’s focus was aimed at establishing and growing its Fitbit Wellness program. This allowed it to boost its healthcare market customer base by 1,000 in 2015. This shows the growing appeal of the wearable devices within that industry, as well.

Now, BI Intelligence has predicted that the most promising area for growth for these wearable technology devices will be within the health sector. As a number of trends form both among customers and professionals in the healthcare industry, the interest in these gadgets is expected to rise considerably.