The month of May brought about articles from Tech Insider and Fortune describing a dire situation building over at Jawbone. According to the the posts, Jawbone was ceasing production and development of wearables and Bluetooth speakers, selling off existing inventory to third-party sellers, and possibly closing up shop. It seems those reports may have been prematurely skittish, as Jawbone representatives have broken their silence and refuted most of what was reported.
Speculation that Jawbone is exiting the wearables business or going out of business altogether is false. This speculation appears to emanate from wrongful insinuations made in a blog post in which the reporter has since posted a “Correction.” Unfortunately, other media picked it up before the reporter posted a correction and spread this false information. Jawbone remains wholly committed to innovating in and building great wearables products. The company has never been more excited about its pipeline of technology and products and looks forward to sharing them when ready. We manage our inventory positions according to internal business processes, and strategic product lifecycle objectives. This situation is no different and we will continue to support all of our products in the marketplace. –Jawbone representative
Jawbone has struggled in the five years that it has been building fitness trackers and has gained little momentum against Fitbit. To make things even worse, the Apple Watch (for reasons that defy logic) has also seen notable success in the wearable space, making Jawbone products even less relevant. There has also been added pressure from a growing number of other competitors like Android Wear, Garmin, Misfit, and Xiaomi. It is also worth noting that despite reaffirming their commitment to wearable products, there is little mention of Bluetooth speakers. There is also little explanation about the sudden sale of existing inventory to re-sellers. It stands to reason that Jawbone is not going out of business but is doing some serious restructuring and trying to refocus their strategy. Last November, the company had to let go of 15% of their workforce. Multiple lawsuits filed by their manufacturer, Flex and competitor, Fitbit have done nothing but hinder them further.
It has been about a year since we have seen anything new from Jawbone in this space but lets hope they have been busy developing something new and exciting.
[button link=”http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/31/jawbone-refutes-reports-that-it-will-exit-the-fitness-tracker-ma/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Engadget[/button]
