Google Says It’s Closing the Fitbit Acquisition
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
Google says it's closing the Fitbit acquisition:
Google's senior VP of Hardware, Rick Osterloh, announced Thursday that Google has closed its acquisition of Fitbit. The $2.1 billion deal was announced back in November 2019 and kicked off a regulatory review process from governments around the world concerned about Google's influence over the Internet and the data it can collect on users.
Normally, Osterloh announcing that "Google has completed its acquisition of Fitbit, and I want to personally welcome this talented team to Google" would mean Google has cleared its worldwide regulatory gauntlet. Google's announcement today is highly unusual since the Department of Justice has not yet cleared the deal. As the DOJ told New York Times reporter Cecilia Kang, "The Antitrust Division's investigation of Google's acquisition of Fitbit remains ongoing." Australian regulators also haven't announced a final decision on the merger. It seems particularly provocative for Google to do something like this while it is also dealing with a DOJ antitrust investigation.
When asked about the status of the DOJ's merger investigation, a Google spokesperson told Ars, "We complied with the DOJ's extensive review for the past 14 months, and the agreed-upon waiting period expired without their objection. We continue to be in touch with them and we're committed to answering any additional questions. We are confident this deal will increase competition in the highly crowded wearables market, and we've made commitments that we plan to implement globally."
However the legal issues work out, the announcement doesn't give away a lot about Google's future plans for Fitbit. Osterloh starts by praising Fitbit's existing lineup, calling out the Fitbit Sense smartwatch, the Inspire 2 tracker, and various Fitbit health metrics. Google doesn't make cheap fitness trackers, but the company's Google Fit app has a lot of overlap here in both smartwatches and health metrics. Google says it wants to "make health and wellness more accessible to more people" and "we're confident the combination of Fitbit's leading technology, product expertise and health and wellness innovation with the best of Google's AI, software and hardware will drive more competition in wearables and make the next generation of devices better and more affordable."
Additional coverage at Bloomberg, Android Authority, and Android Police
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