Christina Gough
Research expert covering sports and video gaming
Fitness industry in Germany - Statistics & Facts
The fitness industry encompasses different activities and sports that involve exercising and staying healthy. While a wide variety of individual and team sports are enjoyed in Germany, the fitness industry has the largest number of active participants in the country. According to a 2022 study, fitness was the leading type of sporting activity in Germany based on active members, ranking higher than soccer and gymnastics. Comparing the number of health and fitness club members in Europe, Germany ranked higher than Spain and France when it came to memberships. The importance of an active lifestyle in the country was made even clearer in a 2023 survey conducted as part of the Statista Consumer Insights, which identified that health and fitness was in the top five most common interests in Germany. The prevalence of exercise has led to the establishment of a booming eFitness market as well, with forecasts predicting the online revenue of eFitness apps in Germany to reach almost 470 million U.S. dollars by 2024.
Gym industry overview
One of the strengths of the German gym industry lies in the consistency with which gymgoers visit their fitness studios. To demonstrate, there have been at least nine million fitness club members in Germany every year since 2014, even when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic introduced new challenges to the sector. The impact of the global health crisis on the German fitness market was apparent from the drop in revenue of the fitness market in Germany during 2020 and 2021, although revenue figures improved by 122 percent between 2021 and 2022. Overall, clever fit was the leading fitness club operator in the country based on the number of clubs in operation in 2022.Digital fitness applications
Integrating technology into an exercise routine can provide a more effective way to track progress, monitor health trends, and conveniently manage payments for different services. Digital fitness applications enable gymgoers and fitness enthusiasts to do all of this and more. Overall, the number of eFitness users in Germany was forecast to grow to nearly 18.4 million users by 2024. Looking at the most successful iPhone apps in the health and fitness category in Germany, route planning and sharing platform Komoot was the most lucrative app on the market in 2022. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch was the most used eHealth tracker/smartwatch brand in Germany in 2023.
