Subscribe
About

Revamped Virgin Active app provides online workouts

Sibahle Malinga
By Sibahle Malinga, ITWeb senior news journalist.
Johannesburg, 23 May 2023
Dean Kowarski, group CEO of Virgin Active.
Dean Kowarski, group CEO of Virgin Active.

Virgin Active South Africa has upgraded its mobile app to turn it into an interactive platform for its members.

According to a statement, the refurbished app is part of the fitness and health company’s strategy to help members set and keep fitness goals by allowing them to perform activities virtually.

It will track members’ activity, allocate rewards for consistency and serve as a platform for wellness and fitness topics.

Members can access clubs using the app instead of their access cards, book classes, manage schedules, access online workouts and track their progress, says the company.

The app will launch first in SA at the end of May, and then be rolled out to the global network of Virgin Active gyms in the coming months.

“The app is our starting point to enable members to take their lifestyle changes into their own hands,”comments Dean Kowarski, group CEO of Virgin Active.

The app was developed in collaboration with Future Platforms, a UK-based app development firm, and will be available in the Android and Apple iOS stores.

“Our brief was simple: we needed to create an innovative experience that would reduce member churn and offer more options to our members whosometimes can’t make it to the gym, or need guidance on how to improve their holisticwellness approach,” adds Kowarski.

“To broaden accessibility, our members can also access more than 350 hours of content across eight categories of exercise, whether they’re at home or in the gym.”

Over the past three years, health and fitness apps have become popular due to their ability to keep records of users’ wellness parameters.

The global fitness app market was valued at $1.3 billion in 2022, and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 17.6% from 2023 to 2030, according to Grand View Research.

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its large-scale lockdowns and social distancing requirements, aided the transition from traditional gyms to virtual fitness. This, in turn, led to increased downloads and subscriptions of fitness apps, notes the research firm.

Share