Huami scoops up Zepp
Huami Corporation, a biometric and activity data-driven company with significant expertise in smart wearable technology, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire core assets of Zepp International Limited, a leading multi-sport sensor technology company based in San Jose, California. Zepp was a company that wasn't afraid to develop products for more "lifestyle" sports.
This transaction is expected to significantly expand Huami's footprint in the sports training analytics field by providing new sports products market and global product development opportunities as well as deepening Huami's technological expertise in motion and activity-driven analysis. The well-established brand and business channel of Zepp will also help Huami in expanding global sports brands partnerships as well as in entering the premium sports products market. Founded in 2010, Zepp is one of the first companies in the world to engage in motion smart hardware design. With industry-leading sensor algorithms and motion modeling technologies, Zepp provides instant, quantitative motion analysis to help users make timely adjustments to their training program. Zepp also continues to develop video analysis and processing based on deep learning and has a number of U.S. and international patents in sensors, algorithms, deep learning and other fields. Zepp's smart sensors and mobile application products cover golf, baseball, softball, tennis, soccer, badminton and other sports. "We are delighted to be entering into this Agreement and are excited about the expanded market and global product development opportunities in the sports training analytics field that this transaction brings to the table," said Wang Huang, Chairman and CEO of Huami Corporation. "We expect to leverage Zepp's deep experience, mature products and established partnerships to broaden our feature-rich product portfolio and utilize our strong distribution channels to capture growing opportunities in this segment of the sports industry." The use of sensor-based, advanced motion analysis in sports is growing rapidly and Zepp has a strong brand and established partnerships with some of the leading sports equipment manufacturers such as HEAD Tennis and Yonex Badminton. Over time, the goal of Huami is to capitalize on Zepp's talented research and development team as well as its vast patent portfolio to further develop activity data-driven product offering. Furthermore, Huami will continue leveraging Zepp's established sales channel with Apple to expand the premium sports products market such as golf products. In addition, Huami recently also acquired the core assets of Physical Enterprises Inc. ("PEI"), which was previously controlled by the Adidas Group. PEI is an industry-leading pioneer in fitness wearables and accurate heart rate monitoring with strong algorithms capability. The developed software technology Huami acquired from PEI will help Huami by utilizing proprietary algorithms for estimating cardiorespiratory fitness. This transaction will also help Huami on the sports and fitness market strategy along with the Zepp transaction.