After Fitbit announced last month that it has officially acquired Pebble for less than $40 million and sees it as an opportunity to help crack the code on smartwatches, the company also offered jobs mostly to software engineers at Pebble. But now, it is reported to be laying off 110 of its employees.
According to the source, Fitbit plans to reduce costs by about $200 million after selling 6.5 million units during the December quarter and only generating of about $580 million in revenue based on the preliminary results of its upcoming fourth quarter earnings report. The problem was: the company had expected a profit of between around $750 million and $750 million which is a far cry from that they had actually earned.
This, in turn, made the decision to lay off 6 percent of its workforce, or around 110 of its employees. And in regards to what specific areas of the company will be affected of this cut-off, the company did not say or has declined to say so. There was also no mention if the companies that Fitbit has recently acquired will be affected as well.
Speaking about companies that Fitbit has acquired, earlier this month, Fitbit has also bought Vector on an undisclosed priced. Vector is a brand new smartwatch that appeared just recently this past year which combines incredible engineering talent in Central Europe's Romania, business smarts of London, and former executives from Citizen watches, making its brand name in line among one of the "affordable luxury" smartwatches in the market.
With this being said, Fitbit CEO James Park also mentioned that Fitbit will enter the smartwatch market which is something that has been quite obvious for months now, based on the moves that Fitbit has been making. He believes that his company is in a unique position and can definitely deliver a smartwatch that is stylish, well-designed and combined with the right general purpose functionality geared towards in health and fitness.
