Fitbit invented the fitness tracker, then lost the category it created to Apple

Fitbit was first to make the fitness tracker a mass product. Its bands counted steps and tracked sleep, and by 2015 it was the top seller of wearable devices. It went public on the NYSE in June 2015 at $20 a share, raising $732 million, and the stock more than doubled to a peak of $51.90 that August.

The lead did not last. Apple launched its Watch in 2015 and took the premium end, turning the wearable into a smartwatch with apps and a screen. Cheaper rivals, including Xiaomi's Mi Band, took the low end. Fitbit was squeezed in the middle: its devices were pricier than a basic band but less capable than a watch, and it had no app ecosystem to lock users in.

The numbers turned. Revenue fell from $1.62 billion in 2017 to $1.43 billion in 2019, and Fitbit swung to widening losses — $355 million lost in 2019. It sold 14.4 million devices that year, well below its peak, and the shares spent their last years in single digits.

In November 2019 Google agreed to buy Fitbit for $7.35 a share in cash, about $2.1 billion — a fraction of its 2015 peak. Regulators scrutinised the deal over health data; the European Commission cleared it in December 2020 only after Google committed not to use Fitbit health and wellness data for advertising. The deal closed in January 2021.