ASICS swallowed up by the runkeeper

In recent years, applications designed to track key user health indicators have become particularly popular. Today it became known that ASICS absorbed Runkeeper for an unnamed cost, as reported by founder Jason Jacobs in a publication on Medium. According to him, companies have a "clear match" for development.

“When we look to the future, it becomes obvious that fitness brands will not only develop some accessories. Combining together the software part (fitness platform) with real accessories you can turn into a completely new brand that will inspire consumer confidence.
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For users, after absorption, virtually nothing will change. Now we can develop even faster, and our partner will provide additional resources that are not available to us earlier, which we will be able to use, ”said Jason Jacobs.

In fact, according to this scheme, the whole industry is now operating. Last year, Under Armor swallowed MyFitnessPal for $ 560 million, and Adidas bought Runtastic for $ 239 million. Each of these companies is going to closely integrate the software framework into their products, due to which a fitness platform appears to track fitness indicators and systematize the approach to classes. Nike likewise strengthened its influence on this market, along with the FuelBand bracelets and the Nike + application, which first appeared on the market in 2006.

It is noteworthy that, according to Runkeeper statistics, ASICS remains the most popular brand among sports accessories. For Runkeeper, such a move was quite expected - at the end of last summer, the company reduced its staff by 30%, and decided to focus on increasing the base of active users. At the moment, the base Runkeeper has 40 million users, and the service itself was launched in 2008. Apple becomes one of the most active players in this market - the company along with the HealthKit platform and the Apple Watch is becoming one of the main competitors of fitness applications.