Room for Growth in UK Fitness Tracking Market

It looks like there is still plenty of room for growth in the UK market for wearable fitness trackers. Research from GfK, shows that while around one in five people in the UK now use some kind of fitness tracking, that ratio is well behind countries like China, where 45% of people say they currently monitor their health or fitness through digital technology, and the US, where 29% of consumers use either a mobile application, online, fitness band, clip, or smartwatch.

In Germany the figure is 28% and in France 26%, with the UK on 19%.

More than half (55%) of those who are currently tracking their health and fitness said one of the reasons they do so is ‘to maintain or improve my physical condition or fitness’. Half (50%) said that it acts as a motivation to exercise and more than a third said they used it to improve energy levels (35%) or as a motivation to eat and drink healthily (34%). Almost three in ten (29%) agreed that tracking their health helps improve sleep and lose weight. Only 14% of said they were training for an event.

Among the different age groups in the US, people in their twenties and thirties are most likely to be monitoring their health, at 44% and 46% respectively; the ratio was 25% for teens (ages 15 to 19) and those in their forties. In the 50-plus groups, only 17% monitor their fitness.