Pebble is in some serious trouble, will lay off 25% staff

Even through all the success and popularity of its products, it seems Pebble is not doing so well. CEO Eric Migicovsky announced yesterday that they will be laying of 40 people from the company, which makes up for about 25% of the relatively small Pebble employee base.

If we look into its history, Pebble came to the forefront of smartwatches back in 2012 with a very successful Kickstarter campaign ($10 Million - A Record at the time). They were one of the pioneers in the smartwatch domain and continued success with their new designs, including the Pebble Time line-up.

But even with all that popularity, sustaining a business in the wearables domain alone doesn't seem feasible anymore. Even FitBit, with the biggest marketshare in the wearables space, saw its share prices take a nose-dive in 2016.

Coming back to the current trouble at Pebble, Migicovsky said that they were able to pull some money from investors and their recent Kickstarter campaign. But that wouldn't be enough to keep the sharks at bay. He also mentioned the current investor outlook in this space is quite grim. Moreover, Pebble now has to compete with the likes of Apple, Motorola, LG and Samsung in the same space. Even though Pebble's products start at a much lower price point, but the added competition has driven away sales.

Even if we come to the giants, Apple too just cut the prices of the Apple Watch by $50, which is quite uncommon for the company. Even if we don't know in absolute numbers, the Apple Watch may not be selling as much as Apple hoped for. Then there's the simple fact that companies like Apple, Samsung, Motorola, LG and even Asus have other businesses to fall back on, Pebble on the other hand has nothing else to keep the sentiment high.

Smartwatches were to become the next big thing, but from what we can gather, they are just a gadget that would be nice-to-have but you can easily live without. Pebble's troubles don't just root from lack of money, but simply a dwindling consumer interest in the segment. Smartwatches as a category may be on the verge of death and atleast from a consumer standpoint, they never made much sense.

Via: TechInsider

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