Recently, sports brand lululemon released its fiscal year 2022 financial report, showing that lululemon's net revenue in 2022 reached $8.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 30%; Net profit attributable to owners was US$3.149 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.92%.
Notably, despite the positive results, lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald publicly admitted in an analyst call that the acquisition of brand Mirror was a "rare misstep." In fact, lululemon spent about $500 million to acquire interactive home gym startup Mirror in 2020. Calvin McDonald said at the time that the acquisition of Mirror is an exciting opportunity to enhance our digital and interactive capabilities and deepen our roots as an experiential brand, and we look forward to working together to accelerate the growth of our home fitness business."
From the darling of the capital market to rare mistakes, what happened to the smart fitness mirror that integrates a variety of fitness functions?
It is understood that smart fitness mirrors originated in the European and American markets. In 2018, the American brand Mirror launched the world's first smart fitness mirror product. Immediately, the wind of this smart fitness also blew to the country. In 2020, FITURE launched the first smart fitness mirror in China.
Since then, consumers' time at home has increased significantly, the demand for home sports has rapidly expanded, and more companies have begun to lay out the field of smart fitness mirrors, including startups such as FITURE, Mirror, myShape, YUPP, as well as technology companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Baidu, as well as professional fitness brands such as Gudong, Yijian, Leke, Xiaoqiao Sports, etc., and the "100-mirror war" has also begun.
However, behind the hot track of smart fitness mirrors, there are also questions about "eating ashes", "IQ tax" and "chicken ribs" on social media.
"It is because I saw that the publicity said that you can not only customize AI gymnastics, but also cast the screen to watch videos, play somatosensory games, and place an order as soon as my mind is hot, and after buying it, I didn't use it a few times, so I put it at home as an ordinary dressing mirror." Ms. Chen, from Beijing, said that the price of the hand is almost 3,000, and now it is used as a dressing mirror for 100 yuan, and every time I see it, I feel heartache.
When talking about the use experience, Ms. Chen said that smart fitness mirrors and TV members have a fight, some courses will be charged, and the annual membership fee is about 1,000 more, which is simply a gold-swallowing beast.
In short, at present, smart fitness mirrors are first faced with expensive prices. Check the shopping website and find that most of the smart fitness mirrors on the market range range from 2,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan, of course, there are also 10,000 yuan products. Compared with other fitness equipment, the price of fitness mirrors is really not cheap.
Second, consumers' willingness to pay for online fitness classes is gradually decreasing. According to the "2022 China Fitness Industry Report" statistics on the amount of online fitness users spending nationwide, the survey found that a considerable number of online fitness users are unwilling to pay for online fitness courses, and the proportion increased by nearly 11% within a year to 22.1%.
Third, consumers face the pain point of difficulty in adhering to exercise habits, so there is a possibility that smart fitness mirrors are idle. Fitness itself is an anti-human thing. If users cannot resist people's inertia, lack of strong will and self-discipline, most people will often be like Ms. Chen, reducing the fitness mirror to a dressing mirror and leaving it idle in the corner.
Finally, the online fitness industry is highly competitive. In addition to smart fitness mirrors, vertical apps such as keep, daily yoga, and instant exercise provide a large number of exercise courses, and fitness bloggers such as Liu Genghong, Saturday Ye, and Pamela share fitness videos on social media.
It is worth mentioning that the market for smart fitness mirrors is still very promising. On the one hand, with the improvement of public health awareness, the number of fitness people in mainland China is increasing, and online fitness has great potential. According to the China Insights report, China's online fitness market accounts for 47.0% of the overall fitness market and is expected to account for 60.6% in 2026; The online fitness market is expected to grow from 370.1 billion yuan in 2021 to 895.8 billion yuan in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 19.3%.
On the other hand, the integration of online fitness, smart fitness and offline fitness is the general trend. In 2021, the State General Administration of Sports issued the 14th Five-Year Plan for Sports Development, encouraging the development of Internet + fitness and Internet of Things + fitness models, increasing the supply of sports products and services, and optimizing the integration of online and offline fitness interaction. In addition, gym users also overlap with online fitness crowds. According to the "2022 China Fitness Industry Report", 74.4% of gym users also exercise online.
The weather is not good and too lazy to go to the gym, social fear personnel just want to exercise alone, smart fitness mirror is a good choice, for light fitness people, even at home can experience the vibrant fitness atmosphere. No matter which fitness method you choose, the first step is to get moving!
