Analysts have found signs that domestic capital is flowing away from the traditional real estate, energy and manufacturing industries, and into sectors which have more of an urgent need. And sports is one of these. But just how big a market is it?
She follows the online instructions.. and is happy to exercise at home. For new mom Mi Xiu, there's no need to go to the gym. And she has kept doing this for nearly ten months, losing over 20 pounds in the process.
"I was out of shape after giving birth. I thought maybe I could find a smartphone app to help me work out at home, so I searched the Internet," Mi said.
And she found this, an easy guide and a free online coach. The sports app drew more than 1.5 million users in one year. And it continues to gain in popularity.
"More and more people are starting to work out around me, I saw a huge market and opportunities in it. We got our initial capital from angel investors. After the app went online, we got our first one million users in about one hundred days. And the latest one-million-user-increase only took us 8 days," Wang Ning, CEO & Founder of APP Keep, said.
More than 2,000 mobile sports apps like this have emerged online in China in the past two years.
Meanwhile other new sports equipment -- smart bands for example -- are also becoming a part of people's daily lives. Sports like cycling and skiing are no longer the preserve of just professionals, with more and more Chinese getting involved. At the Badaling winter resort, in the Beijing suburbs, the number of people skiing last year doubled from that of 2014. Many investors see huge market potential in China's new enthusiasm for sport.
"Capital has a keen sense of any industry, it will lead and becoming a driving force. All of this means that the sports industry in China is embracing a boom of investment," Xu Xiaoping, angel investor of Zhenfund, said.
"Sports is a lucrative industry that we cannot ignore. Investing in the sports industry will bring us long-term fluidities. We are expecting the benefits from the investments will be huge even after two or three decades," Wanda Group chairman Wang Jianlin said.
According to the State Council, China is aiming to attract half a billion people into regular sports exercise by 2025, and for the value of the sports industry to surpass 5 trillion yuan.
