Under Armour, makers of performance sporting apparel and … this, Thursday announced the purchase of the Austin, Texas-based MapMyFitness for $150 million. MapMyFitness, the creators of the MapMyRun and MapMyRide apps and websites, is popular in the running and cycling community for using GPS to track, record and share fitness activity.
“This partnership is about Under Armour enhancing our digital expertise to drive the future of performance innovation for the global athlete community,” said Kevin Plank, Founder and CEO of Under Armour in a press release. “We will build on the community of over 20 million registered users that MapMyFitness has cultivated in the connected fitness space, and together we will serve as a destination for the measurement and analytics needs of all athletes. Innovation has always been at the core of our company, and now we are better positioned to design open, digital products for the athlete of tomorrow and become more proactive in providing solutions that will help people across the world lead healthier lifestyles.”
This purchase goes quite a ways toward helping Under Armour in its transition beyond an apparel company with a heart rate monitor and app (the Armour 39) to a player in the digital fitness tracking space currently occupied by Strava, Wahoo Fitness, and Garmin Connect. It also gives Under Armour more ammo in their battle with sports apparel giant Nike.
It will be interesting to see what kinds of new wearable technology this new partnership will develop. Under Armour’s skills in apparel design and marketing can’t help but make MapMyFitness’ web and app offerings more appealing and having an installed base of 20 million registered users can’t hurt Under Armour’s marketing efforts either.
