7digital moves into home fitness space with Apex deal
Home fitness is one business sector which has expanded exponentially during the COVID-19 shutdown, and now the music and tech sectors are using the growth to explore new opportunities.
As part of the trend, London-based B2B digital music solutions company 7digital has struck a deal with the UK’s Apex Rides, a new cutting-edge high-performance smart bike and in-home fitness platform, to service music for its virtual exercise classes
7digital has a catalogue of 80 million tracks, with more additions each day.
7digital chief executive Paul Langworthy tells TMN that the deal is initially for the UK – but will roll out to more countries over time. Apex is differentiating itself as an accessible alternative to the mainstream, with hardware pricing at half the price of that of other major players. It offers premium-class content to attract and retain customers.
“As a result of the COVID shut-down, human behaviour is shifting and changing,” he said.
“People are realising they could do more things at home, on-demand and as such, fitness at home is becoming a more prevalent need for people.
“These companies, regardless of whether they’re rowing or cycling, recognise that the key to customer engagement is in the content – and this is where we come in, supplying in-house licensing services, the world’s music catalogue, and the back-end reporting processes. ”
Apex co-founder Simon Cook said: “We recognised from the start that music is an essential and powerful ingredient in the context of fitness and wellness, and we needed to make sure our instructors had the tools to give members the best overall user experience.”