Fitbit has today announced that its upcoming smartwatch will arrive in time for the Holidays. That is, it will arrive ahead of the start of the Holiday season. The confirmation from Fitbit came by way of the company’s second-quarter results announcement. Where as part of that announcement, Fitbit also confirmed revenue for the second quarter of the year as $353 million, and in no small part thanks to the 3.4 million devices the company claims to have sold during the period.
The first proper indications of a Fitbit smartwatch came through back in January when at the time the company was announcing its fourth-quarter results for 2016. At that time, Fitbit CEO, James Park, hinted the company was working on a smartwatch. Fast forward to now, and it is once again Park who has confirmed the updated arrival time-frame. In fact, Park’s statement on the upcoming smartwatch goes on to state that Fitbit believes this latest hardware addition will be one of the driving forces for “a strong second half of the year” for the company. While also adding that the company believes its smartwatch option will provide consumers with “the best health and fitness experience in the category.” Unfortunately, while the company has now provided some form of time-frame on when its smartwatch will arrive, the announcement did not provide any further details on what can be expected from the watch. Although, it is reported that during the earnings call, Park confirmed that besides the expected health and fitness-related features that a Fitbit-branded smartwatch would have, it will also feature “multi-day battery life” and water-resistance (up to 50 meters).
This is a device that has become highly-anticipated, due to the company’s emphasis on health and fitness. In addition to the smartwatch being seen as a device which may improve the company’s sales going forward. For example, while Fitbit confirmed revenue of $353 million for Q2 of 2017, during the same quarter the year before, Fitbit announced $586 million. Suggesting that revenue year-over-year had been cut in half, a trend which also seems to be the case when Q2 of each year is coupled with Q1 as a six-month period. However, while a smartwatch is being viewed as a future revenue-generator for the company, over the past few weeks reports have started to emerge suggesting that the smartwatch has encountered various issues along the way to market.