Adidas Buys Runtastic for $240 Million
It looks like Adidas decided to step up their game, so the fitness equipment maker as purcased the tech firm Runtastic for te moderate sum of $240 million. But bot companies and quite ambigouous as to what they both want to achieve with their new partnership.
So far they consider themselves to be ”the perfect match” and they are planning for Adidas to “unleash its knowledge of sport”. While these statements are rather idealistic and show that this partnership has a strong future, they are too vague for anybody to actually predict what is going to happen. And from a company like Adidas we expected a little more.
However, you need not worry about the current existent Adidas apps. They will continue to stand as they are since Runtastic are not going to be messing around with them. Runtastic are going to be like a separate company, but working within Adidas. And the only things that could come out of this development would be more money and a much broader technical development.
It is quite possible that this investment can give Adidas the edge they need in the fitness industry. Client standards have risen after all, and nowadays you pretty much need to have a solid app that can enforce how good your equipment or service is.
Runtastic started with activity-tracking software and their experience might help Adidas rise above Nike or any other competitors with solid apps. They are also experienced when it comes to virtual reality, so the acquisition translates into Adidas having learned something new and knowing how to maneuver it instead of starting without knowing anything about it.
So let us dive a little bit deeper into Runtastic: what do we really know about them? First of all, they have around 18 apps spread across all important platforms like Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Blackberry. It is also a company that is looking to expand and willing to hire engineering, design and marketing specialists. Secondly, the Runtastic has a well-established revenue and good earnings streams.
Overall, despite the ambiguous plans mentioned by both companies, the investment seems a rather safe and profitable one. Runtastic is a company with a strong record of over 135 million apps downloaded and 125 employees from approximately 25 countries. Adidas is also a company with a strong record, so it only remains to be seen what they can do with this new, hopefully flourishing, partnership.
Photo Credits pocket-lint.com
