Jawbone, a major player in fitness tracking production for well over a decade, has announced it will stop making UP fitness trackers. Not only that, but inventory will be sold to a third party company, whomever that may be. It seems like Jawbone is washing their hands of the UP fitness tracker altogether.
Due to incredibly low revenue numbers, Jawbone ceases to make UP2, UP3, and UP4 fitness products. The sales numbers were so disappointing that they’re not even going to try to sale the rest to consumers. Instead, they’re selling the rest to a third party retailer for a price so low they may as well be giving them away. They had to do this just to stay in business. We don’t even know if Jawbone will ever even attempt to make UP fitness trackers again. Nobody from Jawbone wants to talk about it. Yes, consumers can still buy the UP tracker. But Jawbone won’t be the one selling it to you. Third parties will. Jawbone will also discontinue it’s Bluetooth speakers. They’re looking for a new third party seller for those too. Despite this major setback, Jawbone raised $165 million in January 2016. Jawbone wants to dedicate that money to build clinical fitness trackers. My question is: If Jawbone is having a hard time selling UP trackers, what makes me want a clinical tracker?
That’s the dilemma. Jawbone had a good start. But recently, as in the last several years, they haven’t been able to compete with Fitbit and Apple’s wearable technology products. There may not be anymore Jawbone had they not raised $165 million in capitol. If I were Jawbone, I would invest it in promoting the products I have and doing whatever it takes to sale the UP products before I even think about moving to something else. Why do I want what they’re making if they can’t even sale what they have?