Fitbit makes stock market debut, share price jumps by more than 50%

Posted:
in General Discussion edited June 2015
Wearable fitness tracker firm Fitbit, which competes with the Apple Watch with its own hardware, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, and investors promptly drove the company's share price up by more than 50 percent in the opening hours.



At press time, Fitbit --?which chose the ticker symbol FIT --?was trading at $30.12, a 50.75-percent increase after more than 44 millions had moved. Fitbit's initial public offering priced at $20 per share, and the increase values the company at just over $6 billion.

Fitbit is rather an outlier when it comes to Silicon Valley IPOs, which likely contributed to the fast rise. They make hardware, rather than relying on the internet or on software, and they are profitable.

Fitbit does face a major existential threat with the rise of smartwatches and other wearables from substantially larger players, including Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Previous comments from Fitbit leadership, however, suggest that the company believes it can coexist peacefully with the next generation of wearables.

"We're more than just wearables," Fitbit CEO James Park said during an interview with CNBC. "We have different products, clippable products, wrist-worn wearable products, scales, etcetera. We are going to focus a lot on software and services. So again the mission of the company, it's really to get people healthier and more active."

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 20
    msanttimsantti Posts: 1,377member
    This tech bubble will burst one day.

    And it won't be pretty when it does.
  • Reply 2 of 20
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,403member

    The price could be justified if viewed as a potential takeover candidate for the likes of Samsung/Google.

  • Reply 3 of 20
    The price could be justified if viewed as a potential takeover candidate for the likes of Samsung/Google.

    GooBit sounds appealing. :lol:
  • Reply 4 of 20
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,053member

    It would be really dumb to invest in this stock. Within a year, it's going to be under $5. 

  • Reply 5 of 20
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,053member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

     

    The price could be justified if viewed as a potential takeover candidate for the likes of Samsung/Google.


    Why would Samsung/Google want to take over? They have Tizen and Android. Also, they know how to make kickass hardware. Fibit only live because it's cheap. Wait for the next few months when Chinese wearable devices start to fill the low end market.

  • Reply 6 of 20
    jason98jason98 Posts: 768member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by fallenjt View Post

     

    Why would Samsung/Google want to take over? They have Tizen and Android. Also, they know how to make kickass hardware. Fibit only live because it's cheap. Wait for the next few months when Chinese wearable devices start to fill the low end market.




    Well they bought Nest. I don't see how they can't buy this crap and connect it to their brillo platform.

  • Reply 7 of 20
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,403member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by fallenjt View Post

     

    Why would Samsung/Google want to take over? They have Tizen and Android. 


    How has wearbles panned out for them?

  • Reply 8 of 20
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member

    According to that chart, the stock opened up at 29.60.

     

    The only way to have gotten it for 20 per share seems to be if somebody was able to be a part of the IPO before it was opened to the public or to the average investor.

     

    That's how most IPOs seem to be.

  • Reply 9 of 20
    Pump and Dump by the Wall St leeches. It can't last (IMHO). Thay'll do anything for a quick $$$$ and to hell with the long term.
  • Reply 10 of 20
    eightzeroeightzero Posts: 3,056member

    Should add it to their (admittedly clever) ads: cha-CHING-fit!

  • Reply 11 of 20
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post



    Fitbit does face a major existential threat with the rise of smartwatches and other wearables from substantially larger players, including Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Previous comments from Fitbit leadership, however, suggest that the company believes it can coexist peacefully with the next generation of wearables.

    I don't really see Apple and FitBit as competitors at all. Yes the ?Watch offers fitness tracking, but in a premium product that not everyone wants or needs. There's no question the ?Watch is worth the price, and the additional amount above the cost of a FitBit is justified. However, many people aren't interested in spending that much money for a fitness tracker, especially if they aren't interested in anything else. As long as FitBit sells the majority of their products as simple fitness tracking bands, then they will easily co-exist with Apple, since Apple is unlikely going to get into the sub-$250 price range with any wearable (iPods excluded), and not everyone is going to want to chalk up even that much money for what will turn out to be for many, a fitness fad. Nevertheless, I don't see how a public company can survive on fitness bands alone, so they had better take their new found capital and invest in diversifying their company.

  • Reply 12 of 20
    d4njvrzfd4njvrzf Posts: 797member
    Fitbit focuses on doing one thing really well. As such, they're not bound by the same design constraints that all-in-one device manufacturers face. For example, they don't need to give up battery life to power a wifi radio.
  • Reply 13 of 20
    agramonteagramonte Posts: 345member

    Apple watch killing these type of devices is as idiotic as all the people who thought the iPad was going to kill off the kindle reader (never happened). Someone who just wants a fitness tracker is not going to go out and pay 350 dollars for a smartwatch (apple or otherwise). Specially one that needs one specific phone and charging every night.

  • Reply 14 of 20
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Just another example of the VC world dumping a bad investment on the investment world. Not saying Fitbit is not a good product, I see lots of people wearing them. But what is their long range prognosis. You can bet that Fitbits investors were looking at what Apple is doing and figure they better get out now before it all falls apart. This segment is getting crowed very quickly with a lot of Me Too guys getting into this space and they all kind of look alike. Even Nike saw the writing on the wall and got out and decided to pair up with Apple verse compete with Apple.

    The only reason to IPO a company is growing so fast the VC can not fund the growth or they know it is a dog and they want to get out before they loose money. Many time VC will first try and find a buyer and get out that way since there are costs putting it on the market in an IPO. Yeah it jumped, so did Facebook and Twitter but they never came back to where there jumped too.
  • Reply 15 of 20
    redefilerredefiler Posts: 323member
    mac_128 wrote: »
    I don't really see Apple and FitBit as competitors at all. Yes the ?Watch offers fitness tracking, but in a premium product that not everyone wants or needs. There's no question the ?Watch is worth the price, and the additional amount above the cost of a FitBit is justified. However, many people aren't interested in spending that much money for a fitness tracker, especially if they aren't interested in anything else. As long as FitBit sells the majority of their products as simple fitness tracking bands, then they will easily co-exist with Apple, since Apple is unlikely going to get into the sub-$250 price range with any wearable (iPods excluded), and not everyone is going to want to chalk up even that much money for what will turn out to be for many, a fitness fad. Nevertheless, I don't see how a public company can survive on fitness bands alone, so they had better take their new found capital and invest in diversifying their company.

    You could have said similar things about the Creative Rio player. The only future for Fitbit is an acquisition... they can try to sell all the peripherals they can, but the core of their ecosystem is now a dinosaur.
  • Reply 16 of 20
    larryalarrya Posts: 606member
    redefiler wrote: »
    You could have said similar things about the Creative Rio player. The only future for Fitbit is an acquisition... they can try to sell all the peripherals they can, but the core of their ecosystem is now a dinosaur.

    You may turn out to be correct eventually, but I think you're being too dismissive. The iPod and any other MP3 player are much more closely aligned in functionality and cost than a $70 step counter and the Apple Watch. As fitness levels increase among FitBit wearers, they will want to measure other activities, like swimming, cycling, and weight training. The heart rate monitor in the watch helps with weight training; for everything else, they still have to look elsewhere for GPS, waterproofing, cadence counting, and battery life (FitBit is vulnerable here in some ways, too)..

    You have to admit, the FitBit mission is focused, and their software integrates calorie and food tracking nicely . I still haven't figured out what the watch is for.
  • Reply 17 of 20
    redefilerredefiler Posts: 323member
    larrya wrote: »
    You may turn out to be correct eventually, but I think you're being too dismissive. The iPod and any other MP3 player are much more closely aligned in functionality and cost than a $70 step counter and the Apple Watch. As fitness levels increase among FitBit wearers, they will want to measure other activities, like swimming, cycling, and weight training. The heart rate monitor in the watch helps with weight training; for everything else, they still have to look elsewhere for GPS, waterproofing, cadence counting, and battery life (FitBit is vulnerable here in some ways, too)..

    You have to admit, the FitBit mission is focused, and their software integrates calorie and food tracking nicely . I still haven't figured out what the watch is for.

    What may look dismissive, is actually just super prescience at peak human speed. Behold as I elaborate for the norms:

    -Some people may want some of Fitbit products functionality, but nobody really wants to wear or any of their clunky junk, or have it cluttering up their lives. Fitbit has zero style.

    -Any monitoring functionality for swimming, cycling, etc. is far better served being built into actual sport clothing, and this is where the 800 pound gorilla called Nike, not to mention competitors like UnderArmor, etc. will beat Fitbit into a bloody pulp. People want to wear those brands, and they already have way better traction in every sporting niche. It's just one feature they add to totally ellipse Nitwit. Nike has already demonstrated they can add tech to their products. Marc Newson has been talking about smart clothing, and it's hard to imagine clunky fitness trackers winning out to stuff like a smart swimsuit in 2-5 years. These will just talk with your portable computer brain (today's iPhone) or a server (also known as "the cloud" by today's idiots), eliminating anything anybody needs Fitbit for.

    -Speaking of niches, here's your cycling, swimming and weight training right here pal. These are very small hobbies compared to the device wearing public at large. Even the people that are into this, only cycle or whatever for a very small portion of their days. Fitness tracking is like the pager of the 90's, when you really think about it, the sensors are pretty pedestrian by modern electronics standards. If Apple can replace cameras and phones by expanding on what was a music player (iPod), a heart rate monitor is essentially just a light. The complicated computer parts are where Fitbit is falling on its face.

    -Right now food and calorie tracking is a totally clunky and boring process of manually entering details. The future of this is using your camera to photo your plate, which then analyses and tracks what you're eating. When your done, you could even take another pic and subtract what you didn't eat. People already photo their food for fun and Apple is a billion times closer to this than Fitbit, who is still having trouble molding plastic in any compelling way.

    Conclusion: Fitbit is a dead company walking. :smokey:
  • Reply 18 of 20
    I wouldn't really call this a 50% jump. The stock actually launched 50% higher, so no one ever had a chance to buy the stock anywhere below the 50%.

    I expected FIT to jump 30% or so on opening day because they're fairly profitable but I didn't expect to never get an opportunity to buy it before it maxxed out.
  • Reply 19 of 20
    larryalarrya Posts: 606member
    redefiler wrote: »
    What may look dismissive, is actually just super prescience at peak human speed. Behold as I elaborate for the norms:

    -Some people may want some of Fitbit products functionality, but nobody really wants to wear or any of their clunky junk, or have it cluttering up their lives. Fitbit has zero style.

    -Any monitoring functionality for swimming, cycling, etc. is far better served being built into actual sport clothing, and this is where the 800 pound gorilla called Nike, not to mention competitors like UnderArmor, etc. will beat Fitbit into a bloody pulp. People want to wear those brands, and they already have way better traction in every sporting niche. It's just one feature they add to totally ellipse Nitwit. Nike has already demonstrated they can add tech to their products. Marc Newson has been talking about smart clothing, and it's hard to imagine clunky fitness trackers winning out to stuff like a smart swimsuit in 2-5 years. These will just talk with your portable computer brain (today's iPhone) or a server (also known as "the cloud" by today's idiots), eliminating anything anybody needs Fitbit for.

    -Speaking of niches, here's your cycling, swimming and weight training right here pal. These are very small hobbies compared to the device wearing public at large. Even the people that are into this, only cycle or whatever for a very small portion of their days. Fitness tracking is like the pager of the 90's, when you really think about it, the sensors are pretty pedestrian by modern electronics standards. If Apple can replace cameras and phones by expanding on what was a music player (iPod), a heart rate monitor is essentially just a light. The complicated computer parts are where Fitbit is falling on its face.

    -Right now food and calorie tracking is a totally clunky and boring process of manually entering details. The future of this is using your camera to photo your plate, which then analyses and tracks what you're eating. When your done, you could even take another pic and subtract what you didn't eat. People already photo their food for fun and Apple is a billion times closer to this than Fitbit, who is still having trouble molding plastic in any compelling way.

    Conclusion: Fitbit is a dead company walking. :smokey:

    Style - no argument there. But it does have a sort of "set it and forget it" utility due to its battery life (and due to its dead stupid electronics). It's also, essentially, disposable at $70 a pop, so it's never a source of stress or worry.

    I am intrigued by your statements about wearables being integrated into clothing, as long as it's cheap enough so I don't have to work out in the same, disgusting clothing every day. This would, indeed, be a game changer.

    As to niche functionality, I think you miss my point despite your obviously superhuman intelligence. I am simply saying that the next upgrade for a FitBit user might not be a smart watch. For me, it was a fancier band (Garmin, w/hidden display, touch screen, notifications, etc that can support peripheral sensors). The fact that Apple has included a pedometer and HR monitor would seem to indicate that their market studies disagree with your assertion that fitness tracking is a niche application.

    Finally, you're assuming FitBit won't do anything to enhance their products. FitBit could be a dead company walking, but only if they stand still (mixed metaphors are fun).
  • Reply 20 of 20
    shenshen Posts: 434member
    Sorry, I have an Apple Watch, and I am now embarrassed I ever spent time money or effort on their half-assed devices...
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