At home, online workouts taking off with livestreaming

Coaches from Super Monkey, an offline gym chain, began giving livestreaming lessons on short-video sharing platforms Douyin and Yizhibo in China since the outbreak, with 190,000 people watching the online livestreaming courses simultaneously during peak hours.

The company also launched 14-day online training courses in February. The 399-yuan online courses were sold out within a single hour, and were estimated to bring the company over 260,000 yuan in revenue.

Liu Hongjian, head of livestreaming at Super Monkey, said: "The livestreaming business is not restricted by regions as users from cities like Changsha, Xi'an and Luoyang can come to our livestreaming studio and have good interactions with trainers, breaking the limitation of geographical boundaries."

Han Wei, the founder of Lefit, a 24-hour gym chain based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said the pandemic has forced the fitness industry to try a new "way of survival". Han said they have not yet considered making money online, but plan to turn the livestreaming business into a long-term service so as to bring more value to users.

Meanwhile, Liu Shuting, founder and CEO of Super Monkey, said online courses are only a supplement to offline services during a special period of time and cannot replace offline courses.

According to a report by Shenzhen, Guangdong province-based Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, revenue from China's fitness club market is expected to increase from 87.8 billion yuan in 2017 to 123 billion yuan in 2020.

Ma Axin, an analyst at LeadLeo Research Institute, said fitness platforms have marched into the livestreaming segment in an attempt to attract more people to fitness classes and further enhance monthly active users and revenue.

"The number of residents who prefer working out at home has increased significantly due to the pandemic, and they may think their movements are nonstandard and hope to obtain professional guidance from trainers," Ma said, adding that yoga, aerobics and other indoor fitness livestreaming courses are gaining traction among fitness enthusiasts.

Ma said the livestreaming business will help online training platforms boost their revenue in the short term. "How to cultivate users' exercise habits through livestreaming is the key point. In addition, there are some drawbacks to livestreaming fitness courses as trainers cannot actually correct mistakes of trainees' movements, and it also is hard to master the rhythm of livestreaming."

Finding just the right users for each live broadcasting session and providing them with highly efficient interactions and exercise experiences is key to ensuring the long-term development of the livestreaming fitness business, Ma added.

There is huge growth potential in China's fitness industry. Market consultancy iResearch said that 63.8 percent of people spent less than 1,000 yuan on fitness and sports in 2018, and the country's fitness sector is situated in an initial stage of development.

Wang Huaiyuan, an investor in the industry, said many fitness lovers still prefer workout lessons that are free of charge and are cautious about paid content, so it will still take more time for online fitness platforms to generate profits through livestreaming methods.

However, Wang said online livestreaming courses are playing a critical role in helping fitness brands attract a new breed of users and enhance their stickiness.