Strava surges as fitness takes off but can the popular app stay top of the charts and keep its users engaged?

Running clubs are having a moment — driven by more people wanting to be fit, a sense of camaraderie and their generally low cost — and in turn, so is the technology fuelling the ever-increasing number of amateur runners. Chief among these increasingly lucrative apps and websites is Strava, an activity-tracking app, which has enjoyed exponential growth in the past couple of years with the advent of wearable technology like watches developed by the likes of Apple, Garmin, Google and Samsung Galaxy. It now calls itself the “world’s largest fitness community”. One of Strava’s key selling points is that it can “track and analyse every aspect of your activity” — from swimming to cycling, Pilates, kayaking, ice-skating, golf and tennis — and, by logging it publicly, create a community based around fitness and activity. In some ways it has similarities to social media behemoths Facebook, Instagram and even X, formerly Twitter — begging the question whether users will inevitably tire of it. But new chief executive Michael Martin expects growth to continue, albeit more sustainably than its 26 per cent jump in users from 2022 to 2023, to 120 million. The Paris Olympics have added to Strava’s moment in the spotlight, with athletes including American sailor Lara Dallman-Weiss tracking their opening ceremony barge journey down the River Seine, while the Tour de France is a natural fit for the app. Strava established a tour hub in its app and on its site to follow competitors. Martin, who joined Strava in January, is a former boss of YouTube Shopping and previously worked as a product leader at Nike and developed its fitness portfolio, including his now rivals at Nike Run Club. He has a grand vision to look at “how we can make progress together to help everyone live their best active life”. “There are world records recorded on Strava, there are first ascents recorded on Strava, there are FKTs (fastest known times) recorded on Strava . . . you get to walk in the footsteps of giants.” For 29-year-old Tom McKinlay, who’s been using Strava since 2020 when he was stuck in pandemic lockdowns while living in Canberra, its narrow focus compared to other social media apps helps keep the Strava community positive. “I now pay for Strava and I’m using it as a training tool to help train for a marathon later this year, and using a lot more of the integration of personal tracking with my watch,” he said, adding his Garmin watch, while it matched previous runs, would not have motivated him to move into interval work and training. “Garmin is one of the big brands but . . . it doesn’t have the same intuitive actions that interact with other people in the same way,” the western suburbs resident said. “There’s a connectedness you have with Strava, mixing with friends and people who run on similar tracks to you.” The fastest-growing user cohort on Strava is Generation Z, who are now aged between 15 and 28. A notoriously fickle generation noted for eschewing drinking to the same degree as their parents and Generation Y contemporaries, and being health-focused, Gen Z runners are about one-third of Strava’s total users. Encouragingly for Martin, Gen Z women users are growing “at twice the rate they were” at the same point last year. This, combined with a desire to be more inclusive, has pushed Strava to work to address female sports and activity rates, which lag behind men. The company has now adopted a “build for her” ethos. As Martin explained, sports and related equipment, training plans and even marketing is designed mostly by and for men. Strava maps include times an activity was started, the exact route and health data of the participant. Under the new guidelines, those features will be able to be quickly edited from what’s posted online, while “night heatmaps”, showing only activities done in dark hours, will be introduced to allow users to see roads, trails and paths that are well-utilised after dark. Recent additions to the app also include a direct messaging function, allowing users to message each other within the app rather than swapping alternative details at the end of an activity. This is on top of the app showing users who they have been near during all or part of their exercise. Key among its primary features are “kudos” — similar to a like on Facebook or Instagram — given to other athletes when they post an activity. Users can also leave comments on others’ activities. “The Strava community is like no other — it is uniformly positive, it is encouraging, it is supportive, it is active . . . (an) amazing global community,” Martin told staff. McKinlay added he also found Strava was a motivator to exercise, particularly on days where he did not want to run, or felt like sleeping in. “But you check Strava and three friends have already gone for a run, you think you’d better start the day off right.” “It’s definitely more positive (than social media) — it’s hard to find somewhere on Strava where people are posting negative content or engaging in negativity. My circle there is considerably smaller but it’s always positive — no one’s talking down someone’s run.” So, with all of these young users interacting with each other, is Strava being used as a dating app — particularly as singles report growing fatigue with the dedicated dating platforms on the market? That depends on who you ask — and perhaps how serious they are about their exercise and Strava pursuits. Undoubtedly people use Strava “to be seen” — it shares social media app characteristics, after all — but a US piece in Elle on the topic proved divisive. No, Strava is Not the New Dating App was Triathlete.com’s rejoinder — but then another piece on Business Insider charted how an American woman started mapping her runs and found a husband in the process. For what it’s worth, Martin told Bloomberg he does not see Strava as a social media app, but declined to be drawn on whether it could — or should — be used as a dating app. “I consider social media networks as apps where (they’re) prioritising engagement on the apps, scrolling . . . Strava’s mission is to motivate you to leave the app and go be active in the world,” he said. “I do see signs in our data that people have become tired of those social media networks and they’re looking for real connections and I do think Strava helps with that.” He later added to TechCrunch: “The average Strava consumer spends 20 times more in the real world in an activity than they do in the app. And I think that’s a super healthy stat. I’m not looking to change that.” In a round of recent interviews, Martin has talked up a more modern, user-friendly and intuitive user experience coming through, and employing a great deal more artificial intelligence-led measures. including being able to weed out what’s been dubbed “digital doping” — where users try to stack their activities by tricking the system to make them appear better. (Tech publications suggested these could include using e-bikes to ride up hills.) There’s also hopes to have AI deliver more personalised data insights to individual athletes, allowing them to address pace and train more effectively. Psychologically at least, perhaps not. In late 2022 US researchers — on an admittedly narrow basis of participants — found the main reasons for college students to use Strava were self-presentation, social pressure and motivation. “Participants . . . felt like they were being more authentic when engaging with Strava than other forms of social media. Despite presenting themselves in more authentic ways, participants were not immune from the social pressures of social media use on Strava,” they wrote in the Recreational Sports Journal. “Participants noted that they sometimes worried about how they were being perceived by their followers and often engaged in social comparison. These pressures sometimes led participants to modify their training or Strava posts to control their image on Strava, much like on other social media platforms.” Earlier research on cyclists, triathletes and runners who used fitness tracking apps such as Strava found some athletes were being driven to addiction. “The way these technologies allow athletes to compare their data to others can cause some to worry about what others think and is pushing them to question themselves or second guess their coaches or training plans,” American sports psychologist Dr Josephine Perry said of her research. For its part, Strava includes on its website a series of articles around mental health and performance anxiety, alongside articles about how to break down 10km races, a preview of the Olympic triathlon races and, perhaps predictably, why you should follow more people on Strava. “It’d be naive to ignore that a lot of the functions of Strava are designed to encourage competition — the fact you are seeing segment competitions and trophies and challenges, it’s designed as a competition, albeit the phrasing is in a positive manner, to encourage people to participate,” McKinlay said. “Inherently most people strive or thrive a little bit with competition, whether it’s competition with yourself or others, there’s something about a healthy bit of competition and getting people exercising and improving themself.” The road for further Strava growth won’t be pursued via the stockmarket — at least for now — with Martin not willing to be drawn on an initial public offering. Strava, he said, did not need further funding and reports suggest it generated $US275m ($424m) in revenue last year, a jump of one-quarter on 2022. Despite the momentum and fervour about Strava, it’s still lagging larger rivals on user numbers. Business of Apps, a tracking site, reports Google Fit has 375 million users, while Apple remains a behemoth with its Health and Fitness platforms collectively boasting 600 million. Samsung Health has another 280 million. Strava’s revenue is also reportedly a far cry from huge rivals Garmin, Peloton and Fitbit. For his part, McKinlay doesn’t see the appeal of Strava dissipating any time soon. “I don’t see myself not using it,” he said. “If I was to stop using Strava, it would be because I’d stopped exercising regularly. “It’s not an intrusive piece of equipment or social media or app to use, it’s not too cumbersome . . . there are no drawbacks that would turn me away at the moment.”

Strava surges as fitness takes off but can the popular app stay top of the charts and keep its users engaged?

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