By estherdidsang@gmail.com 
- Amazfit, well-known for making excellent cheap watches, is going ‘premium’
- The company revealed its plans during an earnings call to investors
- It also claimed Zepp was becoming a “hybrid training platform”, not just a cheap watch and a companion app
However, it could be that even the best Garmin watches, like the Garmin Fenix 8, have something to fear, as according to Amazfit parent company Zepp’s top brass, the brand is set to skew premium this year.
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Wang Huang, founder and CEO of Zepp Health, said in the company’s most recent Q4 earnings call (reported by Investing.com) that the company’s strong results “reflect the continued progress of our multi-year transformation as we evolve from a volume-driven business to a premium-focused global company.
“They also demonstrate strengthening pricing power across our product mix as it continues shifting toward higher value segments.”
That’s likely shareholder-speak for “we’re raising prices and making more expensive versions of our best smartwatches.” The Amazfit T-Rex 3 Ultra is the latest in a slew of outdoor watches that are slowly creeping away from Amazfit’s typical ‘cheap and cheerful’ position towards being rugged contenders to the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and popular Garmin models.
Expect to see more watches follow suit, and Zepp to debut increasingly expensive and higher-quality Amazfit watches.
A hybrid training platform?
That’s not all Huang had to say. Elsewhere in the call, he said: “Over the past few years, we have been transforming Zepp from a traditional wearable hardware company into what we call a hybrid training platform.
“Our goal is not simply to launch competitive devices, but to build a broader performance system that integrates endurance, strength, and recovery through hardware, training intelligence, software, and data capabilities.”
Amazfit is the official timekeeper of global fitness race Hyrox, and naturally has seen increasing adoption among gym fans in a way outdoor-focused watches like Garmin really haven’t.
Consequently, it seems Huang has big plans for the Zepp Health app as a one-stop wellness and recovery app, aided by wearables such as fitness watches, the Helio Strap, and the Amazfit Helio Ring.