Under Armour's Ambition: To Become Nike

Last September, sales of Under Armour (UA) beat Adidas for the first time, becoming the second largest sports brand in the US market after Nike. Today, the sports company is catching up in the mobile health field. Nike The footsteps became more urgent. Recently, UA spent $550 million in one breath and bought two free health apps, 475 million dollars MyFitnessPal and 85 million Endomondo.

The total number of MapMyFitness that we bought 150 million dollars the year before and the UA Record introduced in early January this year are nearly 120 million of the total number of healthy App users, claiming to have built the largest electronic health community in the world.

In contrast, according to the data in April last year, the number of Nike+ launched by Nike in 2006 and Apple was about 28 million, and the total number of users was 100 million, which was surpassed by UA at one go.

In the 120 million user groups of UA, MyFitnessPal's 80 million undoubtedly occupies the big end. In fact, it has different emphasis from other two App. The mobile phone app called "slimming treasure" is designed for users to control their weight. Of course, "weight control" is not just "weight loss". It also has the option of "weight gain".

　　 MyFitnessPal By recording three meals a day, drinking water and exercise, calculate calorie intake and consumption, and provide a nutritional report to the user every day. The record of three meals must be manually input and match the database, and the official website of MyFitnessPal says its database contains 4 million calories of food. Recording the diet and nutrition of everyone is the main function of this application in the early days of 2005. Of course, the accuracy of the record is another matter.

But now, it can also connect. Apple HealthKit A variety of sports recording tools, including Misfit, bracelet, etc., to store user movement. Careful retrieval shows that MyFitnessPal also supports data import from UA's own sports tracking application MapMyFitness, and UA also wants to buy MyFitnessPal to provide users with a comprehensive health tracking tool.

In contrast, the function of Endomondo is almost the same as that of UA's original MapMyFitness. It uses GPS to track movement tracks and share it with friends in a self built healthy social network. There is even overlap with UA Record, which focuses on motion data sharing. But Endomondo is a Denmark Corporation in Copenhagen. Most of its 20 million users come from outside the United States. UA's intention to buy it is obvious, that is, to enter the overseas market.

In 2013, shortly after MapMyFitness was married to UA, it launched the "running shoes" function. Its own UA, rival Nike and other brands of running shoes are optional. This function can roughly calculate the wear degree of shoes, and remind users when to buy shoes. Nike+ also has the function of assisting the sale of shoes. I wonder if the future Endomondo will be added.