Fitbit secures corporate wellness deals with several major customers

Fitbit on December 21 announced it has secured deals to introduce or expand its corporate wellness programs with several major customers, including New York Life, Pitney Bowes, SAP, and Sharp Healthcare.

Fitbit organized all of its corporate wellness products and services under one umbrella, Fitbit Group Health, earlier this year. Fitbit Group Health includes access to Fitbit trackers, custom e-commerce storefronts, wellness challenges, and tracking and reporting services.

In addition to working with Fitbit Group Health to tailor fitness programs for their employees' needs, some of these customers will be offering discounts for employees' friends and family members who want to join in. When SAP first partnered with Fitbit this year, it subsidized Fitbits for its employees and offered discounted devices for friends and family. The program next year will be offered to all of SAP's employees globally. Pitney Bowes will similarly offer subsidized devices for 10,000 employees and their spouses and domestic partners in the US and discounts to the other employees worldwide.

Fitbit continues to dominate the wearables market -- IDC research shows that the company held 23 percent market share in the third quarter of 2016. Still, last month the company posted mixed third quarter results. CEO James Park acknowledged at the time that Fitbit is not growing "at the pace previously expected." However, he stressed that there is "growing evidence of the durability of our platform," arguing that Fitbit has "the necessary ingredients to ignite future growth."

As Fitbit works to build up its corporate wellness business, it has pointed to data from ABI Research, suggesting that corporate wellness programs that include wearable devices increase participation by 40 percent (from an average of 20 percent without wearables to 60 percent or higher with wearables).

"Employers continue to look to consumer-oriented technology and services to develop wellness programs that can empower people to take charge of their health and fitness," Amy McDonough, vice president and general manager of Fitbit Group Health, said in a statement Wednesday. "Fitbit's corporate wellness offering is built around the understanding that better, people-oriented technology enables stronger results using wearable devices that consumers love."