Whether helping users to get fit at home or to compete in an online marathon, developers don't want to skip a step in finding profits
Mobile fitness sharing apps are freeing users from committing to full-year gym memberships and their large upfront payments. The biggest concerns among these startup sharing services is how to make profits and maintain the traffic and equipment.
Further, the interest in fitness has led to development of training apps, which now number more than 1,000. These workout apps can be found in various app stores and attract users with free, detailed tutorials on almost any type of workout, from cardio to muscle development. Some even have video tutorials featuring social media celebrities to demonstrate the moves.
According to consultancy SooToo Research in Beijing, a growing number of people are working out using mobile apps as a guide. In its mobile fitness app report for 2016, it said although 37.2 percent of people chose gyms to exercise 28.9 percent stay at home for various reasons, such as avoiding city traffic and smoggy days.
This makes fitness instruction apps handy tools for those who stay at home.
The apps enable users to exercise with guidance whenever and wherever they want, even in the office during a lunch break.
Keep, the top free fitness app with over 110 million registered users through August, is designed for busy office workers with exercises that last around two to five minutes.
"Two minute workouts before getting off my work," one user commented on the tutorial page. "Life is busy but you always have a little bit of time to exercise."
Developer dilemma
Many users choose to use online apps because they are free. Then, as they grow familiar with the exercises, they become less dependent on the apps. This is the trouble some startup app developers face.
They are trying to make profits - beyond advertising - by maintaining user loyalty amid heavy competition, SooToo Research found out.
"Most apps focus on footstep counting and running. They are rather similar," SooToo's report noted. "By 2017, fitness sports will see over 100 million participants. With their exercise habit changing, the apps need to develop into different, specified categories targeting different age groups and sport varieties to maintain users."
Neil Wang, president of the Chinese arm of consultancy Frost & Sullivan, said many fitness apps imitate each other, causing vicious competition.
"The business is at a starting point. Many users can't tell the difference between various apps, and the app makers will soon lose their passion to create," he said.
