There are over 7,200 health and fitness clubs in the United Kingdom. Collectively, this means one in six of the UK population, or 10 million people, are members. Around 50 percent of the clubs are fitness-only centers with an annual turnover of nearly £2 billion. Most of the facilities are relatively small, with turnovers under £300,000. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a drastic impact on the health and fitness market. Health and fitness clubs were shut down during the UK lockdowns, and even outdoor exercise was restricted. From March 2020 to April 2021, 52 percent of UK consumers were engaged in home workouts and 53 percent purchased products to aid their workouts at home. The average spend on the products was around £165. Of those that bought workout equipment, 31.7 percent had not exercised regularly before, and 76 percent claimed that they would continue to use the equipment after the pandemic had passed. According to global data, the fact that remote work appeared to be a longer-term impact on working patterns made UK consumers much more confident about investing in higher-cost exercise machines and equipment from Amazon, Argos, and eBay, all of which benefitted from a high rise in demand. At the same time, the sales of “athleisure wear” increased, with consumers opting to wear this type of clothing at home for work as well as for their workouts. This increase in sales of casual clothing prompted the UK Office of National Statistics to add these and home exercise equipment to their basket of goods and services used to calculate the cost of living.

During the pandemic, adidas focused on direct sales to customers in the United Kingdom, and this approach paid off with 20.9 percent of consumers buying workout products from them—twice as much as from rivals such as Nike. Assuming the size of the sportswear market is 12 million and the average adidas trainer costs £56.60 and the average athleisure wear costs £52.70, calculate the market potential of this target market.