Personal Health Peps Up With Garmin: Should Others Take Note?

The fast pace of the world has created a niche for smart health devices such as smart scales, smartwatches and other fitness tracking wearables, which aid in seamless, efficient and advanced personal health monitoring.

Further, continuous advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology,which deliver accuracy in health management, are leading to the growing proliferation of these devices. This, in turn, is driving growth in the personal health monitoring devices space.

Given the upbeat scenario, Garmin GRMN is leaving no stone unturned to bolster its presence in this particular space on the back of its strengthening health device offerings.

This is evident from the introduction of the Index S2 smart scale,which synchronizes the health data of users with the Garmin Connect app so that they can access their health and fitness information easily through the app.

Garmin, with its latest move, ups the ante against other technology companies like Fitbit FIT, Apple AAPL, Amazon AMZN, Alphabet’s GOOGL Google, Koninklijke Philips PHG and Lenovo LNVGY,who are making every effort to rapidly penetrate the promising personal health monitoring devices space, which is intensifying the market competition.

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GRMN’s Health Devices Portfolio Poses Challenge

Garmin poses a serious challenge to the above-mentioned peers on the back of the expanding health device portfolio.

The unveiling of Index S2 smart scale remains a major positive in the personal health-monitoring field and also expands the company’s smart scale offerings, which include Garmin Index Smart Scale.

Notably, the new device measures a range of biometrics like weight, body fat percentage, BMI, skeletal muscle mass, bone mass and body water percentage.

Further, the device features a new weight trend graph of the previous 30 days of weight readings. This remains crucial for people deeply focused on weight management.

Apart from smart scales, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company is gaining strong on its robust smartwatch portfolio, which includes fenix, Forerunner and vivo devices that are synchronized with the Cardiogram heart health app that features an optical heart rate.

Further, abnormal heartrate alerts provided by vivoactive 4 and 4S GPSsmartwatches remain noteworthy. Also, other features like advanced sleep tracking, respiration tracking, Body Battery energy monitoring, women cycle tracking, stress tracking with relax reminders and hydration tracking make these watches an absolute fit for tracking fitness.

Hard to Ignore Efforts of FIT, AAPL, AMZN

Fitbit, Apple and Amazon have turned out to be potential contenders in the personal health monitoring device market on the back of their growing endeavors.

Fitbit’s Aria smart scale family, which includes Aria Air and Aria 2, is ideal for meeting one’s health & fitness goals. Both devices track weight, BMI and body fat percentage, and feature trends with charts and graphs. Additionally, Aria 2 helps users to keep a check on their lean mass.

Further, the company is deeply focused toward expanding its fitness tracker and smartwatch portfolio. Recently, it rolled out a smartwatch called Sense, which helps users to track key health trends. The smartwatch is equipped with stress management and other attractive features.

Additionally, it introduced revamped versions of its Versa and Inspire, namely Fitbit Versa 3 and Fitbit Inspire 2, respectively. Further, the launch of its advanced fitness tracker called Charge 4 remains noteworthy.

Apple is gaining strong on its expanding Watch family. The built-in electrocardiogram (ECG) reader in the company’s Watch series, helps to detect atrial fibrillation. Evidently, this Zacks Rank #3 company provides an advanced heart-monitoring system to Watch users.

Further, the always-on retina display on Apple Watch Series-5 enjoys a strong momentum. Also, fitness features like Cycle Tracking, the Noise app and Activity Trends on the watch are facilitating hassle-free user experience.

Meanwhile, Amazon recently made its foray into the personal health monitoring space by launching its fitness-tracking wearable,Amazon Halo Band, which comprises a heart rate monitor, a temperature sensor and an accelerometer. Moreover, the fitness tracker includes two microphones, an LED indicator light and a small sensor capsule for providing accurate data.

LNVGY, PHG & GOOGL in Fray

Lenovo, another Zacks Rank #3 company, which is also striving to boost its reach in the personal health monitoring devices space, is gaining strong on its offerings of smart scale.

Meanwhile, Koninklijke Philips offers oral healthcare and mother & child Care via its Personal Health business. Additionally, its robust DreamStation portfolio is continuously benefiting the Sleep & Respiratory Care segment of this business.

Apart from this, its Philips Smart Body Analysis Scale, which comprises advanced weight and health management features, remains a major positive.

On the other hand, Google’s acquisition of Fossil’s smartwatch technology is noteworthy. Additionally, the company reached a definitive agreement to acquire Fitbit in a bid to expand footprint in the fitness tracking space.

Currently, Google’s parent Alphabet carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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Koninklijke Philips N.V. (PHG) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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