New York (AFP)

Google announced Friday the acquisition of Fitbit, a world leader in fitness connected devices, an acquisition in a coveted market that may revive the debate on the protection of personal data.

The number one search engine will acquire Fitbit for some $ 2.1 billion, the transaction to be concluded in 2020, according to Google.

"Fitbit has been a pioneer in the industry and has created exciting products, experiences and a dynamic user community," said Rick Osterloh, Product Development Manager at Google, in a statement.

"Google is the ideal partner to carry out our mission." With the resources of Google and its global platform, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the field of connected objects, achieve greater economies of scale and make tools even more accessible to all ", responded the co-founder and CEO of Fitbit James Park.

Very popular in the United States, connected watches and other Fitbit physical activity monitors measure the number of steps taken daily, the number of calories absorbed or the number of hours of sleep recommended.

In the market for connected objects, Chinese Xiaomi leads, ahead of Apple, Huawei and Fitbit, according to a survey of IDC firm in the second quarter of 2019.

The market for smartwatch is dominated by Apple, which has been selling its Apple Watch since 2015. The apple firm launched in September the fifth generation of this product.

Fitbit, which launched its first "smartwatch" in 2017, has not been able to gain weight in this sector against the giant Cupertino.

According to Strategy Analytics, Apple held half of the industry's market share in late 2018, far ahead of Fitbit (12.2%) and Samsung (11.8%).

Google did not develop its own model of smartwatch yet, but offered its operating system Wear OS to third parties.

The group assured that Fitbit would continue to use Apple's iOS operating system in addition to Google's.

- Data protection -

The California giant has also sought to reassure the thorny issue of data protection, while several technology heavyweights face sharp criticism on this subject.

"We will be transparent about the data we collect and why we do it," Osterloh said. "Fitbit's health and wellness data will never be used for Google ads, and we will give Fitbit users the choice to verify, move or delete their data," he said.

On Wall Street, the market reacted positively to the news of the takeover of Fitbit, whose title soared by 15% around 15H20 GMT.

The share price of $ 7.11, however, remained below that invested by Google, who paid $ 7.35 per share for this acquisition.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, was up 0.3%.

"By buying Fitbit, Google is acquiring customers and data, which I think is a good decision, because Google has not been successful in the connected devices business so far, and 'Apple is far ahead with Watch,' commented Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights and Strategy.

According to Techsponential's Avi Greengart, "Fitbit is a strong, well-established brand with an excellent distribution network, which gives Google a much faster entry into the market than if it had built its own fitness tool or smartwatch. "

© 2019 AFP