BENGALURU: Weeks after the US-headquartered Snap Fitness announced its plans to expand its operations, Bengaluru-headquartered Chisel Fitness on Sunday shared its major expansion plans.
Chisel, in which Indian cricket batsman Virat Kohli has a 30 per cent stake, is now looking to start about 100 branches across the country by 2018.
On an average, the group will see a spend of about Rs.2 crore on setting up each centre. As of now, it has two company-owned gyms.
Most of the branches will be franchises.
“Our fitness centres are in Bengaluru and Andhra Pradesh, and we will be opening centres at Delhi, Mumbai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore and Chennai over the next few months,” said Satya Sinha, co-founder, Chisel Fitness.
Even as it will set up branches across the country in a franchisee model, it aims to set up branches in Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates too.
Tie-up
It has also tied up with a California-based firm.
With the Indian fitness industry still in a nascent stage of growth and the slimming and fitness sector being a mere 8 per cent of the total market of the Indian wellness industry, the firm sees scope for growth.
Sinha launched the project along with his wife. They initially worked with a business-to-business model, running gyms at companies. They have 195 such gyms across the country.
But, the margins are low in this model.
About nine months ago they started Chisel, which offers services directly to the consumer.
They also plan to begin selling diet foods and fitness clothing in the future.