07 Dec 2020
Armah Sports partners with Amazon as it looks to create portfolio of smart health clubs
BY Tom Walker
Launched in 2019, Saudi Arabia-based Armah Sports has set itself an ambitious target – to create the first fully-fledged smart fitness clubs in the world and, in the process, become ‘the health club operator of the future’.
Speaking exclusively to HCM in the latest issue, Fahad Alhagbani, CEO and co-founder of Armah Sports, says that the company wants to create a fitness environment which utilises the very latest tech in every aspect of club operations.
"I don’t want to share all the details of our smart ecosystem just yet, but I can say that we are creating a health club environment where physical, digital and human systems come together to enable an enhanced user experience for all stakeholders," Alhagbani says.
"We’re creating some world-firsts, including a collaboration with Amazon for its Alexa product – I wanted to bring voice control into our smart clubs, so you can now use Alexa to book our classes, make enquiries about trainers’ schedules and so on.
"Everything in the ecosystem will be connected."
Armah sports now has 13 locations secured, 10 of which will be owned and operated by the company and three which will be operated through partnerships.
To cater for different customer groups, the smart clubs will be operated under three distinct brands.
"We have two smart club brands: OPTIMO and B_FIT and a budget offering called LIFT," Alhagbani says.
"B_FIT is a progressive brand. It’s avant-garde, egalitarian – for the people. It’s about workouts. It’s about you versus you.
"Meanwhile, OPTIMO is a fully-fledged fitness club, but it has what I call a ‘hotelic’ approach – a luxury hotel-style of environment.
"Using an airline analogy, OPTIMO is first class and B_FIT is business class. Membership at B_FIT will cost you around £1,000 a year, vs around £2,000 a year at OPTIMO.
"The budget offering, LIFT, takes inspiration from some of the best budget club concepts from around the world. It will be a totally new evolution of the concept, however, in line with our smart strategy. We will launch it when the Saudi market is really ready – which I think is not far away – and we are confident it will disrupt the market."
Over the next five years, Armah plans to invest approximately £200m in the venture – through a combination of real estate purchases, facility construction and operations – with a target of opening at least 30–35 clubs.
• To read the full interview with Alhagbani, click here for HCM Issue 10/2020.
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