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Disclaimer: I work for Fitbit, but don't speak for Fitbit. My personal opinion is that unsuccessful Apple Watches have done much more harm to Fitbit than any s
by brlewis 8y ago
Disclaimer: I work for Fitbit, but don't speak for Fitbit.
My personal opinion is that unsuccessful Apple Watches have done much more harm to Fitbit than any successful one will. I'm rooting for the Series 4 to be a market hit. The unsuccessful ones so far have ended up at fire sale prices during the holidays. The last thing Fitbit needs to compete with is a $200 smart watch with an elite brand name on it.
Hopefully they'll retain full retail price for their newer models and the two companies can go back to addressing our respective market segments.
- npunt 8y agoThanks for your insights, really good point! My hunch is the discounts are mostly related to the early, not-that-great revisions of Watch, and that future discounts will be less. That said, with each yearly iteration there is a supply of super old Watches that may wind up in the bargain bin. Series 0-2 really seemed early adopter products in the mold of other 1st gen Apple products (MacBook Air, iPad, etc) and S3 is good but not great. Series 4 definitely seems like a breakout product where capabilities hit some critical use cases - Cellular, GPS, ECG, size reduction (42mm->40mm for same screen size). The platform is definitely hitting its stride. I wonder if/when Apple offers not only last year's model but 2 years ago model to hit a lower price point, as they do with iPhones. That's been part of Apple's strategy to avoid low-end disruption, by segmenting the market such that cheap products cannot moving up-market because of Apple's middle tier on-ramps (like iPhone SE and 6S or non-Pro iPad).
- brlewis 8y agoGood point about the low-end anti-disruption strategy. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.