Fitness industry in India looks poised for an exponential growth with several new and emerging players entering the fitness segment in India.
Until a few years back, fitness in India was limited to the local akhadas and people hardly followed sports other than cricket. However, the fitness and wellness sector in India now looks promising, with India dong well in several sports at the international level.
Fitness, which at one time, belonged to a select few (mostly the elite) few decades ago, has now reached the big middle class in India.
Fitness industry in India today is chiefly driven towards health, well-being, good looks and confidence. Resistance training, aerobics, Zumba, aqua exercises, aerial yoga, Pilates, MMA, kickboxing, etc – you name it, Indians are doing it.
Here are some more reasons why the Indian fitness industry looks promising.
- The fitness space in India, for a long time, was highly fragmented and unorganized.
- Besides, more and more people in India are now becoming fitness conscious thanks to the growing heath awareness.
- India also a huge working class, who have a desk bound job, which brings its own set of health issues
- Diabetes, cardiac problems, osteoporosis, arthritis hit most Indians by the time they reach their forties.
- Its easy to access exercise videos on your smartphone.
- Heart healthy, probiotic, sugar-free, fat-free, low-cholesterol, baked, boiled are some of the words that you can now see on several product packaging these days.
- Indians are spending lot of money to look and feel good.
- Opportunities in the glamour industry motivates youngsters to get in top shape
These are the reasons why the fitness industry looks all set to boom in India.
In India, films (Bollywood) is a huge inspiration for the younger lot. Everyone wants to look like a Salman Khan, John Abraham or a Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone or Kareena Kapoor.
Back in the nineties, there were no sports colleges in India that offered a comprehensive curriculum on sports or exercise science. Today, sports medicine and exercise science disciplines are offered at most universities. The entry of international gym chains in India forced the industry to employ certified trainers.
The old school gyms that you might have visited a decade back are no longer popular; gyms today are very spacious, and have all modern facilities. Having said that, very huge gyms and large format clubs are not viable due to the huge capex, and higher rentals. As a result, smaller personalised fitness studios have sprung up across the country.
Besides targeting residential locations, most gyms are also coming up near office locations (IT parks and commercial places to target the office going crowd).
Demand for fitness technology gadgets/apps have also increased. In future, more an dmore customers will use technology/apps, fitness trackers, etc to keep a track on their fitness.
India’s fitness startup market is 2nd largest, after the US
India is the second largest market globally for investments in fitness tech startups, after the United states.
Large deals above $1 million in India, include CureFit, HealthifyMe, HUG Innovations, Boltt Sports Technologies, Fitternity, MobieFit Technologies, Fitpass. The largest fitness tech deal outside the US went to Munich-based fitness startup eGym, which produces cloud-connected gym equipment.
CureFit is one of the better known startups in the industry and has signed on actor Hrithik Roshan in a Rs100-crore endorsement deal. The startup has both online and offline channels for healthcare.
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