Consumer Electronics

Is Fitbit in Trouble With Apple's New Watch?

Chris Lange

Published: September 13, 2018 1:00 pm

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 5:57 pm

Fitbit Inc. (NYSE: FIT) shares bounced back in Thursday’s session after posting a loss of nearly 7% on Wednesday in regards to the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) presentation for its fall product lineup. Most of this drop centered on the new Apple Watch, which could pose a threat to Fitbit.

Apple’s newest smartwatch, which starts retailing at $399, can now perform an electrocardiogram (ECG) and detect atrial fibrillation or when a person’s heart rate is too low. This watch is even approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for direct-to-consumer purchase, which is a first for over-the-counter ECG-enabled devices.

The new Apple Watch will be available for preorder on September 14, and it will begin selling on September 21.

Morgan Stanley’s Yuuji Anderson jumped after this presentation and weighed in on the Apple/Fitbit relationship. Overall, he believes that the drop in Fitbit’s shares on Wednesday rightly reflected the concerns over the pace of software and sensor improvements, when compared to the Fitbit ecosystem.

As a result, Anderson issued an Underweight rating with a $4 price target for Fitbit, implying a downside of 27.7% from Wednesday’s closing price of $5.53. He went on to say in his report:

We are more concerned that the health and fitness functionalities between the Versa and Charge 3 are not sufficiently differentiated to avoid cannibalization and its aggregate demand will not sufficiently offset legacy product declines exiting the year,

Shares of Fitbit were up 1.6% at $5.62 in Thursday’s session. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $6.35 and a 52-week trading range of $4.51 to $7.79.

Apple traded up about 3% to $227.57, in a 52-week range of $149.16 to $229.67. The consensus price target is $222.42.

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