It seems that the sporting goods producers are interested in getting more mobile and social as Under Armour acquired this February the Danish sports tracking service Endomondo – And today we got the news that one of the category leading social sports services, Sports Tracker, has been acquired by sporting goods company Amer Sports. With the full ownership of share capital, the Nokia spin-off company will join the brand family of Amer Sports that includes internationally recognized brands such as Wilson, Salomon and Suunto.
“It’s the spirit of the time,” CEO of Sports Tracker Jussi Kaasinen describes: “Established players have noticed that the line between hardware and software is fading as the next generation digital services are developed to be on-time and social.”
Kaasinen believes that joining Amer Sports will create great opportunities to the Sports Tracker community while it also brings additional recources that enable the development of the service even further. Sports Tracker aims to become more efficient, faster and versatile with its service offering – and they hope to expand the service to new sports and usage scenarios.
“This is a great step forward. We will be able to use our years of special expertise when developing Sports Tracker’s service offering to a completely new level as a part of Amer Sports’ digital ecosystem. We are proud of being able to continue moving millions of people worldwide as a part of a leading global sporting goods company having a number of truly awesome sports brands under its umbrella,” Kaasinen says.
As searching for the perfect partner (to take over the world with), Kaasinen emphasizes that to them it was important to find a partner that shares the same goals and drive with the Sports Tracker team. “With Amer Sports we can continue taking finnish know-how to the world,” Kaasinen says.
As Amer Sports aims on ‘improving performance and increasing the enjoyment of sports and outdoor activities with their technically advanced sports equipment’ and Sports Tracker wants to ‘help you perform better’– The companies seem to be a match made in heaven. Sports Tracker has also added hardware such as sensors and accessories in their offering while Amer wants to get more digital and mobile.
“The product family will support all in all the overall offering of Sports Tracker – but in the heart of the operations is still mobility,” Kaasinen says.
