Fitbit业绩连续低迷引发投资者担忧

Fitbit连续第三个季度达不到华尔街的预期和自己的指导目标。同时，Fitbit的股票也是连续第三次在盘后交易中出现下滑。

在公司公布其疲软的财务展望之后，投资者让这家健康手环制造商的股票暴跌了15%。

从表面上看，事态对于Fitbit来说似乎不算太糟糕，该公司在截至12月31日的季度销售了820万个新手环。销售额同比增长了92%，达至7.116亿美元。与此同时，利润上升了64%，至6,420万美元。

然而，这一表现并没有打动投资者。他们关注的是业绩展望，后者显示今年前三个月市场对该公司产品的需求将弱于预期。

Fitbit表示，公司将在第一季度不赔不赚，或每股收益达到2美分，而不是23美分。华尔街称，营收将在4.2-4.4亿美元之间，而预期值为4.838亿美元。

在接受《财富》杂志采访时，Fitbit首席执行官詹姆士•帕克对华尔街的悲观情绪不屑一顾。他表示，自己关注的是2016年全年，而不仅仅是第一季度。

“很明显，我们还没有向分析师提供任何指引”，帕克说道，并指责华尔街高估了公司第一季度的表现。“他们的数字源于自己的模型，因此将与第一季度的实际业绩出现差距。”

他还说：“对于我们来说，很多时候我们并不是按照季度来衡量业绩。全年指引才是我们关注的重点，在指引中，我们认为Blaze和Alta系列产品将获得成功。”

Fitbit预计，今年的销售额将在24-25亿美元之间，较2015年增长35%。

Fitbit寄希望于Blaze智能手表的大卖，公司曾在1月份展示过这款产品。但反响却是喜忧参半，人们最不满意的地方集中在设备应用的缺乏，例如天气，以及除了当前支持的文本、日历和呼叫记录之外无法提供更多的提示。

竞争对手，例如苹果手表，则能够做到上述两点。相比之下，Fitbit的短板可能会削弱产品对客户的吸引力。

在未来软件升级的帮助下，帕克乐观地认为，Blaze将从一款拥有有限提示功能的基础型智能手表升级为一款更全面的产品，而且将始终恪守公司的愿景——让设备变得更加简单易用。帕克拒绝提供更为详细的信息。

Fitbit Alta是一款计步和跟踪睡眠的瘦身运动手环，价格129美元。该产品将于3月开始出货。

帕克表示，对Alta和Blaze的预定已经超出了公司内部的预期。Blaze目前在亚马逊100美元以上最畅销智能手表排行榜中排名第二。起价349美元的苹果手表则名列榜首位置。

此外，帕克承诺，Fitbit将在今年晚些时候发布更多的新硬件产品，但他没有对此进行具体说明。

Fitbit收益声明中较为醒目的一点便是其新用户的保留率。2015年期间，Fitbit斩获了1,800万新注册设备用户（Fitbit对注册设备用户的定义是：安装移动应用并将其中一个健康手环或其无线体重计与服务相连的用户）。

在去年年底，上述新注册用户中仍有1300万人在使用Fitbit设备。换句话说，Fitbit的保留率达到了72%；该公司表示，这一数字较前些年有所增长，但帕克没有对其进行量化。

健康手环的保留率——不仅仅是Fitbit——一直都是一个让制造商感到担忧的数字。2014年的一项调查显示，近1/3的可穿戴设备所有者在6个月后便不再使用该设备。如果这一报道是正确的，那么Fitbit在这一方面还处于领先地位，只是领先幅度并不大。

帕克称，斩获较高保留率的一个原因在于，Fitbit大力增加了应用中的社交互动。Fitbit用户在2015年底平均拥有7.5个朋友，而去年同期为4.9个。

帕克认为，如果Fitbit用户有越多的朋友和家人穿戴Fitbit设备，那么用户继续使用Fitbit产品的可能性就越大。就像与你最好的朋友共同购买健身房会员卡一样，Fitbit只不过是数字版的健身卡罢了，两者的目的都是为了相互督促。（财富中文网）

译者：冯丰

校对：詹妮

For the third consecutive quarter, Fitbit beat Wall Street’s expectations and its own guidance. And for the third straight time, Fitbit’s shares took a beatingin after-hours trading.

Investors sent the fitness tracker maker’s stock FIT 0.66% tumbling over 15% after the company gave a weak financial outlook.

On the surface, things didn’t seem so bad for Fitbit, which sold 8.2 million new trackers in the quarter ending Dec. 31. Sales rose 92% to $711.6 million compared to the same period a year earlier. Meanwhile, profits rose 64% to $64.2 million.

Yet, investors weren’t impressed. They focused on the outlook, which suggested that demand for the company’s products would be weaker than expected over the first three months of the year.

Fitbit said it would break even or earn 2 cents per share in the first quarter instead of 23 cents. Revenue would be $420 million to $440 million versus an expected $483.8 million according to The Street.

In an interview with Fortune on Monday, Fitbit CEO James Park shrugged off Wall Street’s pessimism. He wanted to focus on full-year 2016, and not merely the first quarter.

“We obviously hadn’t given any guidance to analysts,” Park said, laying blame on Wall Street for over estimating his company’s first quarter performance. “They were creating the numbers with their own models, so there’s going to be some disconnect for Q1.

He continued: “For us, a lot of it is we’re not looking at it quarter to quarter. The key thing for us is the full year guidance and that reflects the success we feel we’re going to have with the Blaze and Alta.”

Fitbit predicted $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion in sales this year, or 35% more than in 2015.

Fitbit is banking on big sales of the $200 Blaze smartwatch, which it first showed off in January. But reactions were mixed, with the loudest complaints focused on the device’s lack of applications such as weather, and inability to provide more notifications than the currently supported text, calendar, and phone calls.

Competitors like the Apple Watch AAPL -0.23% can do both. Fitbit’s shortcoming, in comparison, could make it more difficult to attract customers.

With the help of future software upgrades, Park is optimistic the Blaze will evolve from a basic smartwatch with limited notifications to a more comprehensive product—all the while remaining true to the company’s vision of making the device as simple as possible to use. Park declined to provide further details.

Fitbit’s Alta, a slimmer activity tracker for counting steps and tracking sleep that costs $129, will begin shipping in March.

Park said preorders for both the Alta and Blaze have exceeded internal forecasts, with the Blaze currently sitting in the number two slot on Amazon’s best selling smartwatches over $100. The Apple Watch, which starts at $349, is at the top of the list.

Additionally, Park promised that Fitbit would release more new hardware products later this year, though he wouldn’t elaborate.

One data point that stuck out from Fitbit’s earnings announcement was its retention rate of new users. During 2015, Fitbit added 18 million new registered users of its devices. (Fitbit defines a registered device user as someone who’s installed the mobile application and connects one of its fitness trackers or its wireless scale to the service.)

At the end of the year, 13 million of those users were still using a Fitbit device. In other words, Fitbit has a 72% retention rate; a number that’s Fitbit said has increased when compared to prior years, though Park didn’t quantify it.

Retention rates for fitness trackers—not just Fitbit’s—has long been an area of concern. A 2014 study found nearly a third of wearable owners quit using the device within six months. Assuming the report was accurate, Fitbit is ahead of the curve, but not by much.

According to Park, one reason for the higher retention rate is due to the headway Fitbit has made on increasing social interaction within the app. Fitbit users had an average of 7.5 friends at the end of 2015 compared with 4.9 friends a year earlier.

Park’s philosophy is that the more Fitbit-wearing friends and family members a Fitbit user has, the more likely the user would continue using the product. Think of it as the digital equivalent of signing up for a gym membership with your best friend, in an effort to hold one another accountable.