When the global sale of Fitbit was dropping unexpectedly, it partnered with Flipkart to boost up its business in the Indian market of e-commerce. Prior to this, the US-based company also ventured with Amazon India for selling its devices online.The previous venture was a big success from which Fitbit was inspired and collaborated with Flipkart this time. The company has aimed to take one-on-one with its major competitors Apple and Xiaomi, by selling its products to the Indian consumers.
Grab the Best Flipkart Offers here
Fitbit Eyes on Indian Market
Fitbit is a good brand, which originally manufactures the wearable devices to be used for fitness or gym tracking. The company understands that there is a big scope in the Indian market where the products are sold in the online mode.
An additional vision of Fitbit to sell its products in India is to increase its popularity in the International market. To materialize its dream, the company has now partnered with Flipkart (and earlier with Amazon) for selling its gadgets, which has a very good coverage of customers in the Indian market and Amazon offers is what attracts them.
It started when Fitbit, even after being a global pioneer in developing and selling fitness tracking gadgets, reported a drop of around 30% in its sale in just a year. When it sold around 22.3 million units in 2016, this number dropped to be just 15.3 million in 2017.The organization now aims to build-up its grip in the Indian market, so that the sale of its products is revived in the upcoming year. Such gadgets are currently sold for the Xiaomi and Apple brands to the Indian customers.
Where Xiaomi is most purchased by the customers who prioritize budget, Apple devices are the favourite of those who would not compromise the quality at any possible cost. Fitbit expects to beat both of these by promoting its sale in India with the help of Flipkart.
Robust Declarations from the Company
Neil Shah, the Research Director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research stated his thoughts about Fitbit - “Most of the market is still online because consumers for such products are very tech savvy. Fitbit has been relegated to more of a niche segment, with its market share being around six per cent in terms of sales and 10 per cent in terms of revenues in India”.
On the other hand, Fitbit counterfeits this statement based on the data provided by GfK market analyst and stated that in India, they have near to 60% of their share value in the health and fitness tracker market. Additionally, over 80% of their share value is for health and fitness trackers worth above $100 (around INR 6,500).
Fitbit also shared that apart from the online websites, their gadgets are also sold at more than 1,000 tech stores across 100 cities of India. More surprisingly, users from more than 500 cities use the Fitbit products.
Best Sellers of Fitness Trackers in 2017
Based on the declarations from Counterpoint Technology Market Research, in 2017, near to 2.7 million units of fitness trackers were sold in India. This upheld the sale of more than $800 million.Out of this, the major role player was the low budget Xiaomi’sMi Band, which was sold at just INR 1,200. Another big name in the sellers of fitness trackers was GoQii, which is primarily a well-known fitness app that and also sells wearable devices.
According to other sources, Xiaomi sold 95% of its Mi Band devices online, and the industry average for online sales was around 75%. But for Fitbit, only 50% of its sales came from online channels in India. The company had collaborated with Titan to sell its devices at their outlets in India.
The fitness tracking devices of Fitbit are available on Flipkart which would hence cover lots of Indian customers. Based on the recent studies, Flipkart has a big customer base of around 100 million.However, Flipkart does not give an official statement or records related to its active customers per month. As per the technology marketing experts, Fitbit is becoming a niche player in the Indian as well as the global market.