It seems that Jawbone has exited the wearables technology race. It was just announced that the company has stopped the production of its UP fitness trackers and has sold off its remaining inventory to a third party seller.
The company used to sell three major fitness trackers: the UP2, UP3 and UP4. Since Jawbone had found it difficult to sell the products, they decided to offload their inventory at a discount. As of this writing, it is still unclear whether Jawbone will continue manufacturing its UP fitness trackers.
Tech Insider was clear in reporting that although Jawbone has confirmed selling its remaining inventory, it is not exiting the wearables business. It has been almost a year since it released its flagship fitness tracker but it has failed to generate revenue. Market leaders FitBit and Apple still dominate today.
It was also reported that Jawbone is actively seeking a buyer for its Bluetooth speaker business. At the moment, they are trying to sell off their old stocks, similar to what they did with their UP fitness trackers.
The thing is the Jawbone speakers were actually rated quite highly by consumers. The problem was stiff competition. Instead of being a must-have item, the speakers became an expensive gadget that would be cool to have but not deemed necessary.
Fortune reported that the reason for the sell-off was so that the company could focus on its “health and wellness” business. Reviews for the Jawbone UP fitness trackers were always met with mixed reviews. For instance, the newest ones would slip off quite easily. The previous one, on the other hand, had a strange design that did not quite take off with consumers.
Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman has also come out with a statement saying the data they received from wearables was far more important than maintaining their hardware business. A possible next step for Jawbone would be to create deals with wearable manufacturers using their own software or apps.
