Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN), today announced it has acquired Firstbeat Analytics Oy, a privately-held provider of physiological analytics and metrics for consumer devices in the health, wellness, fitness and performance markets. Firstbeat Analytics is the consumer licensing business formerly a part of Firstbeat Technologies. Firstbeat Technologies will continue operating its Wellness and Professional Sports businesses.
(Garmin Press Release, June 30)
(Garmin Press Release, June 30)
- Garmin acquired Firstbeat Analytics after licensing the technology for years on almost all of their fitness tracking devices.
- Firstbeat Analytics is used by virtually all sports/fitness wearables outside of Polar, which does its own in-house analytics.
- It is not yet clear how this evolves medium and long-term, but it appears Garmin will continue to license its technology to Suunto, Casio, Huawei, Xiaomi and others.
- This is a positive for Garmin which can now get advance look at analytics software to integrate into its devices.