Profitable fitness at fingertips

As consumption upgrades, app-backed small gyms spawn new business model

A combination of health awareness, lifestyle-related consumption upgrade, innovative use of digital technologies, and high-quality manufacturing is spurring a boom in China's fitness industry.

By the end of 2018, the industry boasted more than 53,000 facilities - gyms big and small, dance-based exercise floors, yoga studios and the like - that shaped forecasts of a 70 billion yuan ($10.4 billion) business by 2020.