Jawbone is Selling Speaker Biz, Puts Fitness Trackers on Hold

After failing to gain traction in the wearables market currently dominated by Fitbit and Apple, Jawbone has ceased production of its UP line of fitness trackers and reportedly sold its remaining inventory to a third party reseller at a discount. It is not clear whether Jawbone plans to manufacture the fitness trackers again in the future. The company has also discontinued its Bluetooth speaker business and is currently looking to unload remaining inventory. According to multiple sources, Jawbone has been looking to sell its Jambox wireless speaker business.

San Francisco-based Jawbone offers three fitness monitors — the UP2, UP3 and UP4 trackers — but has failed to compete in a market that Fitbit presently rules.

Jawbone_UP_Fitness_Tracker

“Mobile companies shipped a total of 19.7 million wearables worldwide last quarter,” reports VentureBeat. “That figure is up 67.2 percent from the 11.8 million units shipped in Q1 2015.”

However, Jawbone was not among the top brands in this space. The Q1 2016 market share was led by Fitbit (24.5 percent), Xiaomi (19 percent), Apple (7.5 percent), Garmin (4.6 percent), Samsung and BBK (3.6 percent each).

According to Tech Insider, “It’s been over a year since Jawbone has released a new flagship fitness tracker. Despite entering the wearables market almost five years ago, Jawbone has failed to gain any significant market share in the space.”

Jawbone unsuccessfully took on Flex and Fitbit in court recently, and laid off 15 percent of its workforce in November. The company raised $165 million in funding earlier this year, but was only valued at $1.5 billion (about half its value during the previous round of funding). “The company’s CEO Hosain Rahman told Tech Insider a few months ago that the company plans to use that money to develop clinical-grade fitness trackers.”

Meanwhile, Jawbone has been pitching “buyers for its Jambox wireless speaker business so it can focus exclusively on its health and wearables business,” notes Fortune.

“Over the last year we’ve come to terms with the fact that our future value is focused on wellness,” said Alex Asseily, Jawbone’s chairman and co-founder. “Audio is great, and I think our audio products, particularly Jambox, are sexier. But it’s not as big a market.”

6/1 UPDATE: Jawbone CEO and founder Hosain Rahman refutes recent reports that his company is halting production of its UP fitness trackers and selling the remaining inventory to a third party. “As some of you may have recently seen, there have been a few incorrect media reports that Jawbone is exiting the wearables business or going out of business altogether,” he wrote in a blog post. “These reports are unequivocally false.” Rahman suggests that an inaccurate report was posted online before a correction was published, and other media outlets ran the news based on the initial post. “We will continue to support all of our products,” he added. “UP2, UP3 and UP4 are still hugely popular and continue to sell well.”

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