Keep competitive product analysis report!

The body is the capital of revolution. After the epidemic, people pay more attention to their physical health, and the fitness industry is booming. Compared to offline gyms, many people prefer to use fitness apps.

1. Industry Background

1.1 Political environment

In June 2016, the General Administration of Sport of China released the National Fitness Plan (2016-2020), and the sports and fitness industry became a key target of national support. Since then, relevant policies such as the "National Fitness Guide" and the "Action Plan to Further Promote Sports Consumption (2019-2020)" have been introduced to improve the industrial structure layout, guide healthy consumption concepts, encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, and greatly promote the development of the fitness industry. The goal is to reach 500 million people participating in physical exercise by 2025, and the scale of the fitness and leisure industry will reach 3 trillion yuan. This undoubtedly provides a huge market development space for the online sports app market.

(Source: iResearch)

1.2 Economic Environment

In recent years, China's economy has continued to develop, and the per capita disposable income of residents has continued to increase. By 2019, China's per capita disposable income reached 30,733 yuan, an increase of 8.9% over the previous year. The increase in per capita disposable income has upgraded residents' consumption structure and consumption concepts. By 2020, the total scale of sports consumption in the country will reach 1.5 trillion yuan, and the proportion of sports and fitness consumption in household consumption will increase significantly.

1.3 Social Background

Under the national policies and guidance, the awareness of sports among the whole nation has been awakened, and more and more people are paying attention to their physical fitness and starting to pursue a healthy life of sports and fitness.

In addition, the domestic population's obesity and sub-health problems are becoming increasingly serious, which also brings about more demands for sports and health management.

On the other hand, the accelerated pace of life and the fragmentation of time have made sports and fitness apps that are convenient, socially interactive, and capable of fragmented management popular among a large number of people, and the user scale of the online sports and fitness market continues to grow. The outbreak of the epidemic in 2020 and the lifestyle of home isolation have made sports and fitness apps an important choice for people to exercise. More and more people have begun to be exposed to exercise methods such as online course guidance or live course guidance.

1.4 Technological Development

The maturity of Internet technology and the popularity of wifi hotspots allow people to easily and quickly download courses for training or upload pictures for social interaction, which improves people's experience during exercise and promotes the development of sports and fitness apps. The arrival of 5G network will usher in a new round of development climax.

The application and research and development of smart technology and wearable devices empower the sports and fitness industry. The continuous improvement of product performance provides users with more personalized and intelligent sports and fitness services, and at the same time derives new markets in highly relevant cross-fields of the fitness industry. According to data from iResearch Consulting, the proportion of investment and financing in smart technology has increased, and mature smart technology companies are more favored by the capital market.

(Source: iResearch)

2. Competitive Product Analysis

2.1 Competitive product information

2.2 Development History

The above is the development history of keep and Gudong, from which we can see:

Keep was initially positioned as a mobile online fitness tool, providing fitness courses to a large number of fitness novices in the market, and quickly accumulated a large number of users. Subsequently, Keep continued to enrich the types of courses, optimize the user experience, and gradually add functions such as outdoor running to provide users with diverse sports scenes. The product positioning has changed from "fitness tool" to "free sports field", and it has begun to enter the e-commerce field to explore commercialization. In 2018, keep launched the offline sports space keepland, directing online traffic to online, creating sports scenes for users' urban life, and releasing the keepkit series of smart hardware products. It launched the keepk1 smart treadmill to connect users' home sports scenes, meet users' sports needs in multiple scenarios, and achieve a full range of closed-loop services online and offline. In addition, keep also launched its own brand of clothing and light meals and other products, repositioning itself as a one-stop platform that solves all sports needs, aiming to cover the four major scenarios of users' eating, wearing, using, and training.

In the early days, Gudong focused on the development and sales of hardware. It was not until 2012 when the "Gudong Sports+" app was officially launched that Gudong began to move towards the software + hardware path. In 2014, "Gudong Sports+" was renamed "Gudong", and the platform hardware was opened to open source, entering the era of "sports social networking + hardware open source". Subsequently, Gudong continued to launch smart hardware devices and improve hardware services, while also continuously enriching sports social networking, adding social function modules such as hot topics, sports circles, sports groups, and Gudong Bar. It also actively organized various online and offline activities and events to expand users' social scenarios and increase user stickiness and community activity. In 2017, Gudong released its smart sports strategy, and its products began to transform from sports social tools to smart sports platforms, providing users with smart guidance services through sports data. Subsequently, Gudong continued to improve and upgrade service data, enrich the layout of smart hardware, develop training courses equipped with equipment, increase equipment evaluation, and position itself as a smart sports platform and professional equipment shopping guide, providing users with pre-sales shopping guides for smart equipment, after-sales sports guidance, training and communication and other supporting services, to create an ecosystem for smart sports.

2.3 User Market

(Source: iResearch)

According to iResearch data, the monthly active users of Keep are around 18 million, while the monthly active users of Gudong are around 5 million. There is a big gap in the user scale between the two. Personal analysis shows that the main reasons are:

First, in the online sports segment, the competition for traffic in the running field is more intense than that in the fitness field. Keep expanded from the fitness field to other sports fields, while Gudong expanded from the running field to other sports fields. Both have their own advantages in their respective fields. However, running is the most popular and low-threshold sport, which also makes the competition in the running field the most intense and the control of traffic resources the most dispersed. Combined with the data shown in the iResearch chart below, as a leading manufacturer in the fitness field, Keep has 87.73% of its active users in the field, which gives it an absolute advantage in the fitness field. However, as a leading manufacturer in the running field, Gudong has only 30.53% of its active users in the field, and its advantage in the running field is not obvious, which leads to a gap in user scale between the two.

(Source: Analysys Data)

Second, because Gudong is positioned as a smart sports platform and professional equipment shopping guide, smart hardware is an important part of its user experience process, and requires higher consumption capabilities from users, which also creates a certain threshold.

2.4 User Analysis

2.4.1 Geographical distribution

(Source: Baidu Index)

(Source: Baidu Index)

The geographical distribution of users of Gudong and Keep is mainly concentrated in coastal cities. This is because the economic development level in coastal cities is high, people have higher consumption capacity, and sports and fitness consumption accounts for a higher proportion of household consumption. At the same time, the accelerated pace of life and irregular work and rest schedules have also increased the demand for sports and fitness.

A comparison shows that the geographical distribution of Gudong users is more concentrated in coastal cities than that of Keep. Personally, I believe this is because Gudong has a higher threshold. First, Gudong focuses on smart hardware and requires higher consumption capacity of users. Second, Gudong mainly focuses on running and cycling, and has higher requirements for outdoor scenes. Residents in economically developed cities have higher income levels, and cities also have more complete sports facilities and venues, which can lower the corresponding threshold.

2.4.2 Age distribution

(Source: Baidu Index)

The users of the two products are mainly between 20 and 39 years old, which is the age group where people work hard. Irregular lifestyle and high pressure in life are problems faced by most people. They have a great demand for exercise, and sports and fitness have become their main way to maintain health and relieve stress.

Among them, keep's users are younger, with more users aged 20-29, while Gudong's users are older, with more users aged 40-49. My personal analysis is that young users pay attention to their image and figure, and keep, which focuses on fitness, is obviously more attractive to them. Older users are more concerned about their own health testing and management, and Gudong's data services are more attractive to them. At the same time, they also have a higher consumption capacity to purchase related smart devices.

2.4.3 Gender distribution

(Source: Baidu Index)

In terms of gender distribution, keep has more female users, with a male-to-female ratio close to 2:3, while Gudong has more male users, with a male-to-female ratio of about 3:2. In my personal analysis, I believe that women pay more attention to body shaping than men. In addition to the core fitness courses, Keep also provides courses that women are interested in, such as yoga, meditation, dance, and some courses related to menstruation and postpartum period, to help women shape their body and regulate their physiology, thus attracting a large number of female users.

2.5 Functional structure comparison

Keep and Gudong both have the same functions such as sports data recording, course plan guidance, sports social networking, sports mall, etc. However, the two have different product positioning, which makes their functional structures also different.

Keep's information architecture consists of [Home], [Plan], [Sports], [Mall], and [My]. The overall structure is based on course content. "Live class", "keep bike", "keep treadmill" and other tags are placed as a secondary label in [Sports]. [Plan] is a primary label in the bottom bar. These are to display course content to users more intuitively, so that users can quickly find the corresponding course guidance and give full play to its diversified and high-quality course content advantages.

Gudong consists of [Sports Circle], [Discovery], [Sports], [Goods] and [My]. Gudong, which focuses on smart sports and sports social networking, mainly focuses on outdoor sports and has added "swimming" and "skiing". On the one hand, smart equipment is more popular with outdoor athletes, and on the other hand, outdoor athletes are happy to share and communicate. Gudong promotes users to share comments through dynamics, and sports groups bring together users with the same goals and hobbies and users in the same city, further increasing users' social relationships within the product. Officially organized events further expand users' online relationships to offline, increasing user stickiness to the product. The categories on [Sports Circle] include labels such as "Short Videos", "Children and Teenagers", and "Events". The selected dynamics below the [Sports Page] are all designed to promote user sharing and likes.

2.6 Comparison of Competitive Product Features

2.6.1 Core Function Comparison

2.6.1.1 Exercise (taking running as an example)

(keep)

(Gudong)

In sports, taking running as an example, through the comparison in the above picture, we can see that keep focuses on showing course content to users, putting running guidance, outdoor running, and treadmill in the same tab, and below is a selection of running courses, aiming to guide users to choose courses when exercising. However, there are more elements on the page than Gudong, which increases the cost of user decision-making. When users click the green button for outdoor running, they will immediately enter the running page to record data, which reduces the page jump process compared to Gudong.

Gudong, on the other hand, focuses on guiding users to add running shoes and equipment. There are fewer elements on the page, and the buttons of the shoe cabinet and smart equipment are prominently displayed, allowing users to notice them at the first time and avoiding interference from other elements. But this also makes the page process longer than keep, especially when the network is not good, users need to spend more time. The user clicks the Run button to enter the exercise settings page, the button to add equipment appears repeatedly, and clicks the Run button again to start the exercise. Although Gudong emphasizes the button for adding equipment, there is no effective guidance on the page for connecting smart equipment. The various categories of smart equipment make users feel overwhelmed and they don’t know how to choose. There are also options such as smart skipping ropes and smart fat scales that have nothing to do with running. It is recommended to streamline them according to different types of sports to reduce user troubles.

2.6.1.2 Course Guidance

2.6.1.2.1 Course Page

(keep) (Gudong)

On the course page, both Keep and Gudong provide the function of course filtering, but the page layouts are very different.

Keep lists the major categories and minor categories in order when filtering, allowing people to intuitively see the filtering conditions, while also reducing the operations required by users when selecting multiple tags. However, the numerous screening conditions not only occupy too much area on the page, making the page appear crowded, but also cause certain psychological pressure on users. However, Keep places the courses with the highest popularity on a single day at the top and also provides a testing function, providing corresponding course recommendations based on the user's answers. This plays a good guiding role for users who do not have clear goals and, to a certain extent, alleviates the psychological pressure brought to users by too many screening conditions.

Gudong switches between major categories of courses by sliding the top tab. The filtering and sorting functions are always on the top, and the small categories are hidden in them in a drawer-like manner. Each filtered small category will change according to different major categories. This makes the page appear clear and concise, and the filtering conditions are also simple and clear, reducing the user's decision-making cost. On the other hand, the names of Gudong’s major categories are relatively straightforward. I personally think this is because its users are relatively older, and straightforward naming makes it easier for users to understand. However, separating sorting and filtering will inevitably increase the operations required by users when selecting multiple tags, and the filtering conditions for each major category will change, which can easily cause confusion for users.

The two have their own advantages and disadvantages in terms of course page screening and page layout. Keep is more intuitive, while Gudong is simpler. This may also be the result of the differences in the types and numbers of courses between the two parties. However, the test function provided by Keep has to some extent solved the problem of users who do not have clear goals and do not know what to practice. It is recommended that Gudong can also add a similar function.

2.6.1.2.2 Course Details

(keep)

(Gudong)

On the course details page, both Keep and Gudong display information such as course description, training duration, difficulty level, calories burned, course content, and related recommendations. Gudong also displays the connection status of smart equipment to guide users to connect smart equipment, while keep also displays the number of people training, training experience, training comments, and the dynamics posted by users after completing training. It introduces social attributes to the course details page to promote communication between users and create a social atmosphere for multiple people to train together. Users can also have a deeper understanding of the course when communicating and viewing comments. In addition, keep also provides functions such as collection and adding to calendar, which makes it convenient for users to find courses again and confirm training dates to meet personalized needs. It can be seen that on the course details page, the content displayed by keep is richer than that of Gudong.

2.6.1.3 Summary

Depending on their different positioning, Keep and Gudong have different pages and operating procedures for sports and other aspects. Keep focuses on intuitively displaying its high-quality course content to users, giving full play to its course advantages, while reducing users' page jumps and operations, but cumbersome page elements can easily cause psychological pressure on users and increase their decision-making costs. Gudong focuses on guiding users to add equipment training and highlights the function of adding equipment, but it lacks effective guidance and is still insufficient in guiding users to add equipment. The overall page is concise and clear, highlighting the key points and avoiding too many elements that may confuse users, but on the other hand it also increases the user's operations.

2.6.2 Comparison of other functions

2.6.2.1 Search

(keep)

(Gudong)

In terms of search, keep users only need to click the icon in the upper right corner of the sports page to search, while Gudong does not have a search icon on the sports page. Gudong users need to jump to the discovery or sports circle pages to find it, click and then search. The search function is hidden deep, making it difficult for users to find, and it also increases the page flow required for users to search.

On the search page, both keep and Gudong have popular searches and popular content. Keep also displays popular courses based on its own positioning. Although both keep and Gudong have search records, Gudong's search records require users to click on the search box to appear. In comparison, keep displays the search records directly on the search page, which is more intuitive and reduces the user's operation process for historical searches.

In terms of search results, both Keep and Gudong classify search results according to their own positioning and advantages, which also makes it easier for users to find them. Judging from the category sorting of the search results, from the left, keep has courses and actions, while Gudong has users and sports groups. It can be seen that the two have different focuses, with keep focusing on courses and Gudong focusing on social interaction.

2.6.2.2 Community Page

(keep)

(Gudong)

In the product communities of keep and Gudong, the page layouts of the two are different. Keep displays user dynamics in a list-like format, and compared with Gudong, there are fewer messages in the upper left corner. This design allows users to pay more attention to the dynamic content itself. Gudong adopts a waterfall flow layout, which can display a larger number of user dynamics, increase the exposure of the overall information, and allow users to continue browsing, thereby attracting users.

It can be seen that keep and Gudong are different in the community. Keep focuses on building a vertical sports community, which tends to be content-oriented. In the early days of Keep, users had to complete their training before they could post updates. As Keep developed, the threshold was gradually relaxed, which also gave the community a good sports and fitness atmosphere. In order to maintain this good atmosphere, keep has made strict divisions of dynamic content, and the classification is extremely concise, with only "Follow", "Dynamics" and "Circles", and puts more social content such as "Topics" and "Same City" on the navigation entrance of "Dynamics", and puts more life-oriented dynamics in "Circles". Through such a design, content that is not closely related to sports and fitness is placed in a deeper page hierarchy, avoiding the phenomenon of bad money driving out good money, thereby maintaining the ecology of the community. At the same time, Keep has also set up an encyclopedia platform for fitness experts to share their experiences and knowledge, and fitness novices can also raise difficulties encountered during the fitness process, promoting communication between the two parties and thus outputting high-quality content.

Gudong encourages users to post updates, share, like and comment. The community is more focused on user attributes. It promotes users' clicks, viewing and sharing through life and entertainment-oriented classification labels such as "popular", "short videos", "children and teenagers", and "events", thereby increasing community activity, making full use of users' fragmented time, and enhancing user stickiness to the product. But too many categories not only appear cluttered, but also the content behind them is easily overlooked by users. On the other hand, too much entertainment and life-related content has led to an influx of low-quality content in the Gudong community.

3. Operational Strategy

Keep:

• With courses as the core, we improve the quality of online courses and diversify the types of courses. Push excellent courses to the homepage or search page to better reach users. On the other hand, we focus on user cultivation, building a professional sports community, and output high-quality PGC and UGC content.
• Invite fitness KOLs to join, share fitness experiences with users, create topics, open private courses, live courses, etc.
• The company launched its own-brand products, including smart equipment, clothing and food, to build Keep into a fitness and sports brand.
• Regularly launch online events and competitions to motivate users to exercise.
• We launched the offline smart gym keepland and offline experience store keepstore to open up offline sports scenarios for users and create a closed loop of online and offline services.

Gudong:

• With smart sports as the core, we independently develop smart equipment hardware and AI technologies, and create the Codoon V-coach smart coaching system, which implements real-time data monitoring feedback and real-time sports guidance. Codoon Hub, an open platform of Codoon, was launched, allowing third-party hardware to access and creating a "data + service" smart sports platform. On the other hand, we regularly hold smart device evaluation activities and push high-quality evaluations.
• With social interaction as a supplement, various online and offline events are held to bring online social relationships offline and strengthen user stickiness. At the same time, we cooperate with third parties to hold large-scale events to increase brand influence
• Launched the offline experience store codoonin, laid out new offline retail, and created a consumer-level brand.
• Invite fitness experts to join, share updates with users, create topics, form sports groups, and offer private live courses.

4. Profit Model

The profit models of Keep and Gudong are very similar. The B-side is mainly based on advertising, event cooperation, and corporate services, while the C-side is based on paid courses, smart equipment, membership, e-commerce platforms, event activities and their derivatives.

Membership is the revenue focus of Keep and Gudong, and both companies have put a lot of effort into providing value-added services to members. In addition, relying on its diverse and high-quality courses and advantages in the fitness field, Keep also focuses its revenue on courses and directs online traffic to offline Keep gyms to obtain more revenue.

Gudong has an advantage in smart hardware. It has launched a wide variety of smart hardware equipment, and its revenue focus is on smart hardware shopping guides and e-commerce platforms. In addition to its own brands, it also sells products from third-party brands. In addition, Gudong, which has hosted many competitions, also focuses on competition activities and their derivatives.

5. SWOT Analysis

6. Product optimization suggestions

keep:

• Enrich course types and expand the audience range. Keep can add courses specially customized for middle-aged and elderly users, or courses customized for other specific groups such as people with mild cervical spondylosis. Under the current impact of the epidemic, Keep can also add courses related to mental health to relieve users' psychological pressure.
• Improve product intelligence, such as guiding students to add smart hardware such as the keep bracelet on the course page to display sports data such as "heart rate" in real time.
• A points system is set up to increase user activity. Points are linked to mall discounts or paid courses. Users can use points to purchase live course replays or part of diet plans, training plans, etc.
• You can use Tencent’s resources to promote your brand and increase your brand influence.

Gudong:

• Strengthen the guidance for users to add smart hardware. On the page for adding smart equipment, users can directly search for devices without having to search one by one through categories or displaying corresponding smart hardware for different types of sports, thus avoiding user confusion. In addition, a function of "smart hardware suitable for you" can be added to recommend suitable smart hardware to users based on their interests and hobbies and previous sports data.
• Optimize and build the community atmosphere, clarify the community positioning, grasp the proportion of sports and life, and plan the dynamic classification of the community. You can refer to the circle approach of keep, divide the dynamics by circles, and delegate the dynamics not related to fitness to the next level. A question-and-answer function can also be set up to strengthen communication between sports novices and sports veterans, thereby solving the problems of sports novices and realizing the value of sports veterans.
• Enrich the types of events. Currently, Gudong's events are mainly based on running. Some niche sports, such as ball games or skiing, can be held to increase user enthusiasm for participation.
• Create a variety of family sports scenes. Under the influence of the epidemic, people’s demand for exercising at home has increased, and Gudong’s sports are more outdoors-oriented, and live classes are also mainly fitness-oriented. It is recommended to increase the number of live courses related to smart hardware such as treadmills, walking machines, and smart skipping ropes to enrich the content of family sports, or to use smart hardware such as walking machines in conjunction with first-person landscape videos to allow users to experience the scenery elsewhere while walking at home.

VII. Conclusion

By comparing keep and Gudong, both have their own characteristics and advantages. As technology continues to develop and update and user needs continue to differentiate, how to combine smart technology and sports to meet users' personalized needs will become the key. We will wait and see how Keep and Gudong will develop in the future.

Author: Watch the watch

Source: Watch