By James F. Peltz
Los Angeles Times
Fitbit Inc. unveiled a series of virtual “adventures” to pair with its fitness-tracking wristbands Monday as the company tries to maintain its sales momentum.
Fitbit Adventures, a new feature on the San Francisco company’s mobile app, allows users to virtually experience such “challenges” as hiking trails at Yosemite National Park or tracing the route of the New York City Marathon with each step they log on their Fitbit device.
Photos, maps and other images that show the user’s progress on the adventures can be viewed on a smartphone or other device that syncs with the trackers. Future updates will add other global destinations and experiences, Fitbit said.
The adventures “are the perfect motivation for anyone who may not want to compete in a traditional Fitbit group challenge with friends or family,” Tim Roberts, executive vice president for interactive at Fitbit, said in a statement.
Fitbit’s sales continued to surge in the first half of this year, but its profit has plunged as it invests in new products, marketing and acquisitions.
In response, the company’s stock has dropped well below the prices it enjoyed soon after its June 2015 initial public offering. The stock’s IPO price was $20 a share, and it briefly soared above $50 a share.
But the stock then suffered a steady decline and it’s dropped by more than 50 percent over the last 12 months. On Monday, Fitbit closed at $14.94, up 1.8 percent on the day.
Fitbit’s current market value is $3.3 billion.
The company also has been diversifying to develop mobile-payment technology that could be integrated into its future wearable devices. In May, it acquired the wearable-payments platform of Coin, a Silicon Valley financial tech company.
Fitbit’s products now are sold at 54,000 retail stores in 64 countries. Fitbit, founded in 2007, sold 10.5 million devices in the first half of this year, up from 8.3 million in the same period last year, despite competition from such rivals as Jawbone, Misfit and Garmin.
Fitbit’s revenue soared in the first six months of this year to $1.09 billion, up 48 percent from $737 million in the first half of 2015. The gains were led by sales of Fitbit’s newer Blaze and Alta devices. But its profit for that period tumbled to $17.4 million, down from $65.7 million a year earlier.
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