Health and fitness app industry grew only 9% in 2017

The health and fitness app industry, which saw a massive growth of over 330 per cent in three years since 2014, witnessed a slowdown and grew only nine per cent in 2016-17 worldwide, a survey has revealed.

From 2014 to 2015, the industry demonstrated a year-over-year growth of 178 per cent, while from 2016 to 2017 it grew only nine per cent, said the survey by Flurry from Oath, a global mobile analytics firm.

To understand the slowdown, the health and fitness market was segmented into four sub-categories: workout and weight loss, general health, nutrition, and studios and fitness content.

The findings showed that the largest subcategory, "workout and weight loss", showed a significantly slower year-over-year growth rate. From 67 per cent in 2015, it went down to 11 per cent in 2016.

While "nutrition" apps showed a decline of 26 per cent, apps for "studio and fitness" content showed a 49 per cent growth in 2016.

However, the "general health" category revealed stagnation at 41 per cent in the last two years.

It said wearables, such as fitness bands and smartwatches, will see a significant growth.

According to Gartner forecast, there would be over 310 million wearables sold in 2017, which would be an increase of 16.7 per cent to 2016.

For the survey, Flurry reviewed the health and fitness app industry based on app usage of over 1,000,000 apps across all app categories, providing insights into 2.1 billion devices.

--IANS

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