The Zhitong Finance App learned that in recent years, outdoor sports have continued to heat up, attracting more and more young people to participate and heal the body and mind.

This May Day holiday, the popularity of outdoor activities continues to rise. More and more people are participating in outdoor sports such as camping, cycling, mountaineering, and hiking. According to data from a local lifestyle platform, “cycling park,” “cycling club,” and “camping barbecue” have become popular search terms since 2024. Among them, the number of searches related to “hiking” increased by nearly 100% year-on-year, and the number of note-taking strategies increased by more than 190%; keywords such as “one-day hiking” and “mountain climbing and hiking” all increased by more than 400%.

As the number of participants in outdoor sports continues to increase, the scale of the industry continues to grow. According to the national “Outdoor Sports Industry Development Plan (2022 to 2025)”, up to now, the number of participants in outdoor sports in the country has exceeded 400 million, and the total size of the outdoor sports industry will exceed 3 trillion yuan by 2025. According to the “2024 Spring/Summer Taobao Tmall Sports Outdoor Industry Trends White Paper” released by Tmall a few days ago, the frequency of participation in outdoor sports has increased significantly in the past year, and the popularity of hiking, mountaineering and cycling has increased, and water sports have become consumers' preferred sports in spring and summer.

The growing enthusiasm for outdoor sports has also brought new business opportunities to players in the industry. Head sports technology platform Keep (03650) emphasized in its latest financial report that in the past year, more outdoor courses and experiences have been added to enhance users' interaction and social functions. The app can synchronize real-time fitness data recorded by users' smart wear. These outdoor courses have effectively enhanced user participation and content expansion, and also made Keep have a more active community atmosphere. At the same time, Keep has expanded its consumer goods product line from indoor to outdoor-related categories to provide users with a choice of sports equipment and apparel in various sports scenarios. The development of outdoor products has shown a steady growth trend over the past year.

Recently, Keep's trendy outdoor brand held a “Sports XIU” bazaar event at “Cool Sports Lab” in Beijing, joining 8 brands to launch various trendy sports courses, including Baduanjin & Taiji, Fat Burning Party, Zumba, Kabaddi, Stick Bell, etc. These trendy hobbies and low-threshold sports attracted nearly 10,000 participants. Participants at the event all said, “I hope Keep will continue to launch related outdoor activities.”

According to the 8.0 version recently released by Keep, the outdoors will become an important growth bonanza for Keep. In the past, Keep's content focused on the family scene, focusing on the user's “eating, wearing, and practicing” layout. The 8.0 version is more open, covering over 60 sports categories, including indoor fitness programs such as exercise classes, boxing, and pilates, as well as outdoor sports such as ball, swimming, frisbee, skiing, and rock climbing, or outdoor sports that require specialized venues. According to public information, the Keep8.0 version has now covered more than 100,000 running routes in more than 300 cities across the country, and this year this data will expand to 5 million.

At the “Spring Song” press conference a few days ago, Peng Wei, co-founder of Keep expressed his determination and confidence to promote outdoor sports and comprehensively develop professional marathons. He mentioned that in 2023, Keep will add 100,000 more professional runners, and offline users will use Keep to finish 25% of the highest race in 2023, and runners who break three can account for up to 30%. In 2024, Keep will continue to expand the scale of marathon cooperation to serve more than 150 events across the country.

As early as 2022, Keep was keenly aware of the increase in users' demand for outdoor sports. In May of that year, it launched its own trendy sports brand “Cool Sports Lab” to expand offline and outdoor scenes, explore new ways to play traditional sports, and discover current trendy sports categories. In January 2023, Keep reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation with trendy sports platform Goumen to further lay out cool sports, so that more people can enjoy a healthy lifestyle through easy, fun, and cool low-threshold sports, and experience the “happy freedom” brought by sports.

According to the Guoxin Securities Research Report, the current trend of keeping loss reduction is improving. New outdoor categories are expected to drive consumer goods revenue and gross profit growth. In 2023, the company will begin to expand outdoor equipment categories and course content. Under the boom in the outdoor industry, it is expected to drive an increase in consumer goods revenue and gross margin.

According to Keep's 2023 annual report, Keep's total revenue in 2023 was 2,138 billion yuan. The adjusted net loss was drastically reduced to 295 million yuan year-on-year, and gross margin reached 45%, which means Keep has entered a stage of high-quality development.