While the Fossil Group's entry into the world of smartwatches has largely focused around fashion, it looks like the company is ready to shift to a more sporty approach with its connected timepieces.



In the Q&A section of its Q1 2019 earnings call, Kosta Karsotis, chairman and chief executive at Fossil Group, was responding to a question regarding the performance of its Kors brand when he revealed that it would begin to offer Michael Kors smartwatches that are more focused on keeping active.

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"In wearables, we've got more platforms coming this year than last year and one of them is a sport version, health and wellness oriented," Karsotis said. "It could be a game changer in the wearables business; so new function and features and we'll be talking more about that later in the year, it could be good."



That move to sportier models seems to be driven by the popularity of the Fossil Sport, which launched at the back end of 2018. The move would see Fossil bring its ranges closer in line with its rivals like the Apple Watch, Samsung's Galaxy Watch and Fitbit's smartwatches.

"We've largely been focused on fashion SKU's, metal, I think metal, leather, just -- we've done really big business off that, said Greg McKelvey, Fossil Group's chief commercial and strategy officer.

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"But Fossil Sport right out of the gate has done incredibly well, we couldn't keep it in stock and we're going to be driving that sport platform with silicon, lighter weight materials, latest tech across several brands as we go through the year. So that's just a significant addressable market that we really weren't going after before."

Other interesting insights into the company's move in the smartwatch space included the strong performance of its Michael Kors Access Runway smartwatch, the follow-up to the Michael Kors Sofie.

"The Runway platform that we launched, we really bet everything on one platform which was a bit minimalist, and we believe we've moved a little bit away from the jet set and true runway appeal that the customer, the Michael Kors customer, knows," said McKelvey.



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"We've got multiple proven platforms coming back in that are much more consistent with what their customer expects. We just launched, 25 April, the Sofie product which was a huge success when it launched a year and a half ago, and we've got more coming in the fall."

So, while there was a decline for its connected business in the first quarter of the year, it seems Fossil Group is not letting up with its smartwatch push and we'll have more devices to try before the year is out.

Via:The Motley Fool



