Fitbit CEO James Park discusses the company's larger health initiatives, competing with Apple, and its new Versa Lite smartwatch.
. It also announced Fitbit Care in September, a program for employers and health plan providers.
The success of these initiatives will be critical for Fitbit as Apple becomes a more formidable rival in the smartwatch and health tracking space. Apple maintained its position as the No. 1 wearable device maker worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to a new report from the. Apple accounted for 27.4% of the global wearable device market, while Fitbit accounted for 9.4%. Fitbit also placed behind Xiaomi and Huawei, which were responsible for 12.% and 9.6% of the market respectively.
During a recent interview with Business Insider, Park discussed Fitbit's new products, its long-term goals, and how it plans to compete with Apple.: Let's start with the Fitbit Versa Lite, which you just unveiled on Wednesday. How did Fitbit decide which features to compromise on to get to that lower price point?: I don't know [if] we'd call it compromise. Curation is a better [word]. So for us, Versa was a huge success. It really allowed us to leapfrog to No.
And then ultimately, it's not just about giving people a device, but it's providing them coaching, guidance and content. And we'll do that in the form of a paid premium offering in the second half of this year. So again it's all about more accessible affordable devices working in concert with software that knows you and helps guide you and coach you.
For instance, with cognitive behavioral therapy, one part is that when people get into bed they just lie there. But that's not good. Your brain should think that bed is where you sleep, not where you're just lounging around. So one part of cognitive behavioral therapy is that you should only get into bed when you're absolutely tired, not when you think you should go to bed.: [Fitbit] is doing a lot of work in the enterprise health space too.
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