FitBit is a pioneer in wearable technology. But the company has recently shifted its strategy amid competition from the Apple Watch, and as the wearable market has failed to really see mass adoption. Cheddar's Hope King and Brad Smith explore the company's performance using E*Trade's innovative platform.
Adult wearable technology users in the U.S. is expected to grow nearly 12 percent this year, according to eMarketer. In a survey conducted by Cheddar, 18 percent said they own a FitBit compared to 27 percent who've said they own an Apple Watch. 47 percent of those surveyed by Cheddar say they don't wear any wearable technology.
FitBit has had an up and down year, with shares ranging between $5 and $7 a share. Overall, shares are down 17 percent over the course of the past year. The company did introduce its first smartwatch in 2017, and is looking to directly compete against the Apple Watch at a similar price point. Shares also hit a 52-week high in December during the holiday shopping season.
FitBit reports fourth quarter earnings after the Closing Bell Monday. Analysts expect revenue of nearly $590 Million, and to break even in profit.
In recent years, Vimeo has been pushing to transform itself into an end-to-end platform for video creators, adding post-production tools, storage capabilities, and live streaming features. Creators can publish their content on any other platform through Vimeo, including on competitors like YouTube. "That provides a real advantage for us in that we can be Switzerland in that publishing landscape," CEO Joey Levin tells Cheddar's Alex Heath at the Sun Valley conference.
IAC, which owns Match, Tinder, and OkCupid, recently added Hinge to its portfolio because "we like competing with ourselves," says CEO Joey Levin. "Tinder was created inside of Match to disrupt Match." Levin spoke with Cheddar's Alex Heath at the Allen & Co. Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.
The wireless company will hold a stake in Magic Leap, which released a demo of its mixed-reality headset Wednesday afternoon. “For AT&T, it makes a lot of sense to invest in this area,” says Ed Baig, personal tech columnist at USA TODAY. “It’ll be curious to see if AT&T subsidizes the price of this headset” like it does with smartphones.
Even when Netflix was a DVD rental company, it tried to customize choices for its customers, says Gibson Biddle, former VP product at the streaming giant. That strategy still drives many of the company's decisions today, including the kind of content it spends money on.
According to a New York Times report, Zelle -- institutional banks' answer to Venmo -- has been extremely vulnerable to hacks and fraud. The company that created the app, Early Warning Services, is now working on making Zelle harder to exploit, says Ravi Loganathan, the company's head of business intelligence.
Cheddar’s Alex Heath caught up with industry heavyweights at the 2018 Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho — an event commonly referred to "summer camp for billionaires." The hot merger landscape in the media industry was front-and-center, with Comcast and Disney fighting over the future of Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox empire.
The streaming service will use the fresh capital for "a bigger marketing push," says CEO Andrew McCollum. The company also launched on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV on Tuesday in an attempt to bring the service in front of more users.
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The partnership benefits both companies as the scooter wars begin to heat up. Lime likely chose Uber over other ride-hailing companies because "Uber's got a much deeper geographic penetration, particularly internationally," says Dan Primack, business editor at Axios.
The company, in partnership with Servco Pacific, launched the app Hui on Tuesday in Honolulu, Hawaii, with plans to open in other locations internationally. Hui enables users to choose from a fleet of Toyota and Lexus cars to rent out by the hour or for the day.
