Reports of Jawbone‘s demise have been greatly exaggerated, according to the company’s CEO.
Responding to a recent news piece suggesting the firm had slowed production of its UP fitness trackers and sold remaining inventory to a third party, Jawbone boss Hosain Rahman on Wednesday described the report as “unequivocally false.”
“As some of you may have recently seen, there have been a few incorrect media reports that Jawbone is exiting the wearables business or going out of business altogether,” Rahman wrote in a post on the firm’s blog, adding, “These reports are unequivocally false.”
Keen to dispel any notion that the company has hit hard times or changed its strategy, the CEO said his team are “just as excited today about helping people live healthier, happier lives as we were when we launched UP in 2011.”
Far from scaling back its operation, as the report had suggested, Rahman confirmed that more products are on the way, writing: “It’s a thrilling time to be working at Jawbone, and we can’t wait for the opportunity to share what we’ve been doing.” The company suggested earlier this year it was developing a “clinical-grade” fitness tracker, so this may be what we see next from the firm.
But the situation perhaps isn’t all roses and rainbows. Having helped to bring fitness trackers into the mainstream, the company’s market share in wearables has been overtaken by Fitbit, Apple, and Xiaomi. And toward the end of last year, San Francisco-based Jawbone said it was streamlining its business, a move that involved laying off around 60 workers – equal to 15 percent of its workforce – and the closure of its New York City office. With
But the company’s CEO insisted Wednesday there’s little to worry about. “To be clear, Jawbone remains wholly committed to innovating in and building great wearables products,” Rahman said in his post.
In a further bid to reassure current Jawbone customers, the boss said his company will continue to support all of its products, and promised that an update spilling the beans on all the latest Jawbone news would be coming “soon.” We’ll keep you posted.
