Intel has acquired Basis, which makes wristwatch health trackers, for a price estimated between $100 million and $150 million, said Techcrunch.

Intel would not confirm the deal when approached by Mobile World Live.

It’s unlikely that Intel is intent on pushing into the consumer health market itself but rather the acquisition is a means to an end for pushing its chipsets to device vendors.

Intel lags rivals such as Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics who are currently bigger in the wearables market.

However, the chipset giant is intent on catching up, hence a range of recent announcements in this area at CES, including reference designs.

Basis has an estimated seven per cent share of the health tracker market but lags the big players such as Jawbone, which holds 21 per cent of the market.

Google was also thought to have considered a bid for Basis.