SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Under Armour Inc, which provides sports clothing and accessories, has acquired two mobile apps for about $560 million, moving deeper into the trendy “connected fitness” and wearable devices sphere.
The company said on Wednesday it will pay $475 million for MyFitnessPal, a free app for tracking food habits and caloric-intake. It will also fork over $85 million for Danish firm Endomondo, which describes itself as a personal trainer in your pocket.
MyFitnessPal, which claims to have over 80 million registered users, has developed one of the largest nutrition and calorie databases. That data is an attractive prospect for Under Armour, which is increasingly looking to use insights about consumers’ health and fitness to sell more apparel.
This isn’t the first mobile acquisition for the sports retailer. In November 2013, UnderArmour acquired MapMyFitness, an app to virtually track fitness workouts.
Under Armour, which said in a statement that it’s trying to create the world’s largest digital health and fitness community, may soon compete with Apple Inc and Google Inc . The two technology companies are also building their own software and services for the health and fitness-conscious. (Reporting by Christina Farr; Editing by Bernard Orr)
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