Facebook acquires Finnish fitness app Moves

Facebook has announced the acquisition of mobile apps Moves to gain its growing portfolio of mobile tools.

Meanwhile, the Finnish company behind the application, ProtoGeo Oy, has assured users that they would be able to continue depending on it just the way they had done so far, and there would be no integration with Facebook just because it had been acquired by the social network.

However, what had not been clear to many was  why people would need a separate wearable gadget for keeping tabs on their exercise routines when smartphones with built in sensors could offer the same thing.

Commentators say Facebook would be able to profit from the acquisition since many others might feel the same way about fitness trackers too.

For Facebook, which also had Instagram, Paper, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger in its collection of standalone mobile apps, the latest acquisition is in keeping with the new trend of companies hoping for further growth from the health and fitness market.

The app can automatically track users' walking, cycling and running activities and keep count of the number of steps they had taken and show how many calories they had burned during each activity.

The app uses cell tower and Wi-Fi locations, in addition to acceleration data so that it could rely less on power hungry sensors and GPS.

Meanwhile, Moves said in a statement, "We are joining Facebook's talented team to work on building and improving their products and services with a shared mission of supporting simple, efficient tools for more than a billion people."

Facebook had confirmed to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the Moves deal was "nowhere near the size of other acquisitions the company has made in recent months".

According to ProtoGeo, the application had been downloaded 4 million times for iPhone and Android phones since its launch in January 2013.