Health and fitness apps are winning the Covid-19 era, thanks to closed gyms. But a certain kind of health and fitness app is winning mobile, according to a new report from Apptopia.
Fitness apps are increasingly using video -- and live video -- to deliver fitness content and ... [+]
“Six out of ten of the top Health & Fitness apps are apps that offer video workouts or video-guided exercises,” Apptopia says. “If non-workout apps like Calm, Headspace, and Flo were not included here, the ratio of video to non-video fitness apps would be even greater.”
Indeed.
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Without those wellness apps, six of the top seven fitness apps include video components. Which says something about fitness in the Coronavirus era.
The top 10 health and fitness apps in the U.S. by downloads in the first half of 2020, according to Apptopia, are:
- Calm: 8.6 million installs
- Fitbit: 4.8 million installs
- MyFitnessPal: 3.9 million installs
- Headspace: 3.8 million installs
- Flo: 3.6 million installs
- Muscle Booster Workout: 3.4 million installs
- BetterMe: 3.2 million installs
- Fitness Coach: 2.9 million installs
- Samsung Health: 2.8 million installs
- Home Workout - No Equipment: 2.7 million installs
Video workout apps got 65% more downloads than non-video-based workout apps, Apptopia says. What’s more, they had almost 40% more daily active users, and generated 15% more revenue.
The United States led the world in fitness and health app installs so far in 2020, with 146% more app downloads than India, and almost 300% more than Brazil or Russia. 64% of us are spending more time in fitness apps than we were last year, according to the report.
Leading countries for app installs so far in 2020 in the health and fitness category.
One caveat about this data: Chinese mobile app installs are typically not well-represented in mobile analytics companies’ data, since Google Play is not available in China, and many Chinese consumers install apps from a wide range of mobile app stores.
When you just look at video fitness apps, Fitbit’s app is a clear winner.
The Fitbit app has the most installs, the highest number of daily active users, and ranks fourth in in-app purchase revenue at $4.4 million, according to Apptopia. Video is a core part of the Fitbit app, which also has a premium version.
Fitbit is about to experience increased competition, however, as Amazon has started a paid subscription health service paired with its Halo Band and Apple has announced Fitness+, which will include personalized workouts and recommendations in nine categories and “world-class trainers.”
It’s always a good time to be fit.
And while now appears to be a particularly bad time to be an in-person gym, it also seems to be a good time to have a next-generation video-based fitness app.
The full report is available here.
