Advertisment

Fitness Apps See Downloads Surge by 20% Amid Second COVID Wave

Amid a second COVID-19 wave, people are downloading more and more fitness apps, which have seen downloads go up by 20% on average.

author-image
Hemant Kashyap
New Update
Fitness App see huge surges in downloads

A second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has gripped the country. To tackle the virus, people are downloading more meditation and fitness apps.

Advertisment

Fitness Apps: The New Fad

While these fitness apps have seen downloads go up by around 20% in the past two months. There are also some apps that have seen a surge of as much as 50% since mid-February. India is going through a tough second wave of the pandemic, making people more aware about their physical and mental wellbeing. Of course, the physical and mental stresses of work from home, curfews, lockdown and self-isolation mandates it as well.

Since April 21, India has recorded 3,00,000+ COVID-19 cases on a daily basis. As such, health monitoring and fitness apps are adapting fast to the changing scenario. Many apps now offer features like online medical consultation, sleep monitoring and meditation courses, besides the usual fitness measures.

Advertisment

Mobile and data analytics company, App Annie presented the figures in an email to ET. The key highlight was the 20% increase in health and fitness apps across iOS and Android in March 2021 as compared to February 2021.

Among these apps, Arogya Setu took the top spot by downloads in India in March. It was followed by Co-WIN, which is a government app for registering for vaccination. Several home workout and weight loss apps also featured on the top downloads lists.

What Fitness Apps lead the Charts?

Advertisment

“We’ve seen a 15% increase in new user installs from March benchmarks as well as a 20% uptick in older users reinstalling and coming back to the app,” said Tushar Vashisht, co-founder of HealthifyMe. Notably, this apps is among the top 10 health and fitness apps ranked by App Annie. He added that HealthifyStudio, the company's live home workout solution, registered 25% increase in number of live workouts. He also said that on average, a user books 5-6 live sessions a week on their app.

Growfitter is another fitness app that has seen a similar surge in downloads. Incidentally, it has tie-ups with lifestyle companies that offer customers rewards.

Sanmati Pande, Co-Founder, Growfitter, said that they witnessed 3 lakh downloads in the last 75 days. She added that the number of active users also increased by 50% on their platform within a similar time frame.

The app used to partner with gyms for rewards but has since changed its model. Instead, Growfitter goes with a gamification model, which encourages users to exercise and earn rewards at the same time.

GOQii founder Vishal Gondal also cited high growth over the last month or so. He said the firm has “received thousands of orders for GOQii Health Services and there has been a 350% jump in home-monitoring devices, specially when oximeters went out of stock”. Furthermore, the wearable device maker said its quarantine care service, which includes health monitoring sensors and services, has doctor consultations, live workouts and meditation sessions.

goqii healthifyme growfitter
Advertisment