While everyone may be talking about the Apple Watch, it's hard to ignore Fitbit, the company that made the gadget a reality.
The fitness tracker designer has had a successful year so far, reporting $132 million in net income on $745 million in revenue in 2014. This is a huge economic shift for Fitbit, which reported a $52 million net loss on $271 million in revenue last year. This financial success was more than enough to encourage the company to file for a $100 million IPO and go public with its product.
"The San Francisco-based wearables company plans to trade on the NYSE under ticker symbol FIT, with Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and BofA Merrill Lynch serving as lead bankers. Expect that the $100 million figure is a placeholder, rather than the amount FitBit ultimately plans to raise," Fortune Magazine reported.
That's not the only evidence of Fitbit's rising financial success. Quarterly revenue has increased threefold since Q1 2014, while the total earnings have increased fivefold. But why was there such a sudden increase? "One big explanation for the jump is an increase international sales, while 2013 (and Q1 2014) were harmed by a product recall," Fortune Magazine reported.
But why does Fitbit think its having so much success? The fitness tracker maker says in the filing that it's all about what its' brand entails: "our singular focus on building a connected health and fitness platform, coupled with a leading market share, has led to our brand becoming synonymous with the connected health and fitness category."
Fitbit sold more than 10.9 million devices in 2014, which is more than half of all reported fitness tracker sales in the last year.