Under Armour Leaps into Digital Health with MapMyFitness Acquisition

This week, leading sports performance company Under Armour (NYSE:UA) announced the acquisition of MapMyFitness, the fitness technology company powering one of the world’s largest digital fitness communities.

Under Armour announced in a press release, “With this acquisition, Under Armour will be uniquely positioned at the forefront of sports and technology and will continue to deliver game-changing solutions to how athletes train and perform. As part of the collaboration, Under Armour will add depth to its digital capability, offering athletes an elevated training experience through new digital products and platforms.”

This acquisition is a clear illustration of the biggest business opportunity for consumer-facing digital health companies – scaling up by providing platforms that integrate self-tracking device data with software tools that can help people make sense of and act on the health-related information they are compiling about themselves. Interestingly, by purchasing an open platform of this type, Under Armour is competing directly with Nike and its ‘Nike+’ devices and software platform. The move by Under Armour could herald the emergence of a digital health competition akin to Apple and Google.

“The purchase also affirms our view that digital health technologies and information will play a prominent role in the growth strategies of a variety of companies, including those – like UA – that have traditionally focused on ‘physical’ fitness products rather than apps and online communities,” according to Popper and Company’s Ken Walz.

Click here to read the full Baltimore Business Journal article on Under Armour’s step into digital health.