Planet Fitness CFO Looks to Add Customers as Competitors Struggle During Pandemic

The company’s enlargement programs stand in contrast to the wider physical fitness-heart industry, which has shrunk over the earlier 12 months just after virus-linked limits compelled gyms to close. Approximately 6,800 gyms, or 17% of all health areas in the U.S., shut down forever in 2020, according to the Worldwide Wellness, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, a trade association. Quite a few important chains, including 24 Hour Physical fitness Throughout the world Inc. and Gold’s Gymnasium Worldwide Inc., final year filed for individual bankruptcy.

Earth Physical fitness put in $61.3 million on countrywide promotion through the 2020 calendar 12 months, up 22% from a calendar year earlier. It declined to give an estimate for 2021, but stated that costs increase as new consumers join. The corporation very last yr created $406.6 million in income, down 41% from a 12 months before. “We think about ourselves as significantly a advertising and marketing enterprise as a organization that operates fitness centers,” Mr. Fitzgerald claimed.

World Health operates generally as a franchise, with 95% of its areas owned independently. The corporation does not give its franchisees with money to open up new areas, but is included in selections these kinds of as web page assortment, approval and layout. Planet Health and fitness approximately doubled its complete keep depend because it went community in 2015. The company and its franchisees last year included 123 locations, compared with all-around 200 a year right before the pandemic.

Earth Fitness’s no-frills company model served it climate the pandemic, stated Mr. Fitzgerald, who took on the job in January 2020. The business targets buyers who have in no way been members of a health club, charging a $10 every month cost and offering standard equipment. It doesn’t supply larger-stop features this sort of as swimming swimming pools or climbing walls.

By comparison, the common month-to-month membership cost paid across all U.S. gyms is about $50, and boutique physical fitness studios price about two times as much, according to the IHRSA. Earth Fitness’s lower value stage helps make it effortless for buyers to indication up, analysts explained. “It’s not dissimilar to

Netflix,

” stated Joe Altobello, a running director at financial solutions firm

Raymond James Money Inc.,

describing why shoppers generally continue to be associates of the fitness center even if they not often use it.

The company still took a hit final yr. The variety of customers on its rolls fell 6% to 13.5 million as of Dec. 31, soon after soaring 15% to 14.4 million in 2019.

A single way Earth Conditioning will make revenue is by charging franchisees a portion of their membership fees. The business produced $162.2 million in franchise earnings in 2020, down 27% from a year previously thanks to virus-relevant health and fitness center closures, through which customers weren’t charged. About 50 fitness centers are presently shut thanks to governing administration limits, in accordance to the business.

Earth Physical fitness also sells machines to franchisees, which have to switch their training machines and weights each individual five to 7 many years. The company gave franchisees much more time to fulfill these prerequisites all through the pandemic. Tools gross sales were $83.3 million previous calendar year, in contrast with $251.5 million in 2019.

The company’s expansion plans come as extra men and women function out at dwelling. Revenue at organizations that make domestic health machines, this kind of as

Peloton Interactive Inc.,

have surged above the earlier year. To make individuals much more comfortable about coming back again to the fitness center, Earth Health a short while ago invested in improving in its smartphone app to allow buyers check how crowded their area gym is, Mr. Fitzgerald claimed. Clients also have access to primary fitness courses online, he mentioned.

At-dwelling exercise routines have “always been a complement” to the health and fitness center, Mr. Fitzgerald claimed, pointing to fads these kinds of as Jane Fonda’s VHS tapes from the 1980s, as perfectly as the P90X DVD collection from a decade in the past.

Produce to Kristin Broughton at [email protected]