Morgan Stanley conducted a proprietary AlphaWise survey diving into gyms vs. at-home fitness and the evolving at-home fitness landscape. AlphaWise carried out a total of 6,000 online interviews among 16-75 year olds; 2,000 each in the US, France and Brazil in March 2022.
🚀 At-home fitness is the most popular way to work out with ~50% of Americans already working out at home…
- 24% of US consumers subscribe to a digital workout app, but the market is fractured, led by Apple Fitness+, Peloton, and Nike Training Club (29%/21%/17% share) with a large group of providers with little to no market share-a byproduct of low barrier to entry.
- To contrast that against those who use digital fitness but don’t subscribe: Forbes recently reported that 72% of Americans use digital fitness, implying an opportunity for greater monetization or new ways of more effectively monetizing these users.
🛑 But proceed cautiously: Digital fitness is a red ocean, skews toward higher income brackets, and has a larger ‘low’ to ‘no utilization’ cohort compared to gyms.
- ~25% of at-home exercisers without equipment are working out 3x or less/month vs. just 8% of gym members.
📈 Despite the draconian views on PTON and connected fitness, it's still growing…
- Connected fitness has quickly grown to ~40% of at-home fitness equipment (but a large portion of these consumers may have bought pre-connected fitness era).
- PTON has is the leader with 13% share of at home bikes… However, the competitive landscape remains fierce with five other players garnering >5% share.
- Peloton is the #1 Bike and #2 Treadmill at-home.
Morgan Stanley’s take on the data:
- Morgan Stanley says “Contrary to common belief, digital/connected fitness looks to be a complement to gym usage… not a replacement”.
- “Gym members are ~3x more likely to subscribe to a connected bike and ~4x more likely to subscribe to a connected treadmill.”
My take and observations for the commercial fitness industry:
- Seeing ‘gym’ and ‘at home’ as mutually exclusive customer cohorts is the wrong analysis.
- This article confirms that.
- The optimal way to think about the impact of (COVID19 | digitization | consumerism) on fitness is to consider: who owns the 1P (first party) relationship with the consumer.
- The biggest challenge facing gyms right now is moving up the value chain and maintaining the 1P relationship with the consumer. Most misunderstand the job they provide the consumer. Many claim it’s the “community” they create or their “atmosphere”. This article cites:
- ‘According to our survey, consumers cited convenient location, value for money, and quality of equipment as the top three most valuable attributes of a gym… all of which connected fitness can offer as well.”
- “On the other hand, gym features not addressable by connected fitness (variety of equipment, social atmosphere, personal trainers) are less important (Exhibit 15). The most frequently cited reason to switch/cancel a gym membership was crowding, something connected fitness clearly addresses (Exhibit 16).”
Founder | Designer | Wellness Industry Entrepreneur
2yRemoving the emotion for many of us deep within the "fitness space", it always comes back to meeting people where they are to reduce friction points and speed adoption. We are at home, work, university, travel, AND at the gym/studios IF they represent experiences worth the inconvenience and cost of attendance. So many do... so many don't. The good news is there is nearly an insatiable demand to onboard new participants for all of these spaces if the products are inclusive and demonstrate value. #abundance
Enhancing value and engaging employees through effective training and development programs. Author. Public Speaker.
2yHonestly, if an analysist hasn’t spent time in club operations to understand what the business is about and how it is connecting with members on an emotional level then it’s useless. At its base, the fitness industry is about changing lives and there is no spreadsheet or graph that can reflect that. The numbers can reflect change, but consumers are fickle, create an emotional connection and support life-changing behaviors & you’ll have customers for life.
CEO & Strategic Advisor 🔹 Business Marketing Fitness Franchising Finance & Tech Expert 🔹 Boosting Profitability & Strategic Value 🔹 Delivering Dynamic Keynotes & Facilitations 🔹 Let’s Work Together !
2yThanks for sharing Garrett Marshall . Digital will ultimately carve share away from facilities….It is only a matter of time.
General Manager | Strategist | Entrepreneur | Ironman Athlete | Fitness Podcast Co-Host
2yGarrett Marshall I was chewing on this last night. It’s difficult for a fitness studio/gym to cater to both home and gym when it comes to the active portion of the workout. I know i am biased but the common thread for everyone is recovery. We see people from high end gyms to runners that only buy shoes but the one common thing they do buy is recovery. A gym could conceivably have an attached recovery studio with a separate door for home folks and an entrance into the gym for members.
Personal trainer for people that want to get better and feel better, every day of their life.
2yThe business numbers guys can analyze this stuff until the cows come home. They’ve always been wrong. When men move outside of 1.7 standard deviations from the income level of which they were raised, they stop working out. This usually happens at 52. When women turn 42, they stop working out, regardless of anything else. Connected fitness will totally die once these two ages are hit from our current population. Fitness fads have a 12 year life span, 7 year surge, and 3-5 year high. Most all the fads are about over. Once the now 17-27 year olds become 22-32 year olds, the full shift back into high profit, high billing, highly skilled training will come back into style, just like it was when training became a thing from 1987-1992.