CES 2017 | Fitbit working on an app store

Wearables might soon bounce back, although sales of smartwatches and fitness trackers have not been great in 2016. Pebble had an app store that managed to grow up to around 14,000 third-party apps built to work with its wearables and now, after becoming a part of wearable market leader Fitbit, its experience will be used for building a new digital distribution platform for such devices.

In an interview at CES, Fitbit co-founder and CEO James Park unveiled that the company wants to launch its wearable app store "as soon as possible," also mentioning that this platform would be created using some of the assets inherited from Pebble, a well-known wearable company they acquired last month. 

James Park considers the app store would be helpful for Fitbit to extend its relationships with both health care companies and employers who use Fitbit wearables for corporate wellness programs. Last year, Fitbit also bought Coin, thus gaining the technology required to integrate payment capabilities into its wearables.

Now, after acquiring Pebble and all that comes with its five year-old app store, Fitbit has all the ingredients required to build its own app store. Remains to see how fast they manage to launch it.