Users of the 7card sports center network scored 1,863,000 motion hours last year, meaning 213 years, and burnt one billion calories, reads a study reviewing the activity of the network’s subscribers.
7card is a pass to a network comprising over 650 sports and wellness centers in 54 cities, which means roughly 70% of all such centers in Romania. The pass is offered as an extra-salary benefit in over 1,500 companies in our country, with more than 70,000 employees using it last year. Seven years after its establishment the company has reached a turnover of EUR 7 million in 2018, by 50% more as against 2017.
The company has 300 partner centers only in Bucharest. Although the Capital ranks first on the number of sports centers, it seems that Cluj-Napoca is the city boasting the largest sports and recreation offer per capita. Cluj hosts 27 venues/100,000 inhabitants.
The top five industries with most of the 7card users last year were software service, automotive&components, capital goods, public sector and retail.
The top five most active industries/largest number of companies offering the 7card passes were software service, public sector, consulting and professional services, capital goods, retail.
The study also shows that 53% of the active subscribers are women and 47% men. The average age of the users is 30 years old, while the 26-year-old is the subscriber ticking the largest number of visits to the sports and recreation centers.
“The age of the subscriber who mostly visited the centers in the 7card network is down by three years in 2018 as against 2017, while the average age is up by one year, to 30 years old, which means sports has become a priority for youth. They are also encouraged by the employers, who want to secure employee loyalty. If the sports pass was an extra-salary benefit across over 1,500 public institutions in 2018, we expect the number to rise to 2,000 this year,” said Andrei Crețu, co-founder 7card.
In 2018, the youngest subscriber was 4yo and the oldest, 69yo.
February 12 was the most active day to do sports in 2018, compared to February 28. The most active day of the week was Monday, compared to Tuesday two years ago. Most of the 7card users preferred to come to the sports center from Monday to Friday, during 6-7p.m. and during 10-11a.m. in the weekends.
„We found out that the 7card pass is not used just for routine, fitness activities, but also to discover new entertainment sports,” said in his turn Iulian Cîrciumaru, co-founder 7card.
Fitness&aerobic, cycling and Pilates were the star sports last year, while the highest increase of the number of users was seen in such activities as dance, yoga and squash.
Fitness&aerobic was the most popular activity in most cities in the 7card network, followed by cycling, Zumba, kangoo jumps in Bucharest, martial arts, squash and Pilates in Brasov, dances and swimming in Cluj, swimming, cross fit and kangoo jumps in Iasi, tae boo and tennis in Timisoara.
7card aims at reaching EUR 10 million turnover this year, and at increasing the number of subscribers to 50,000. The average cost of a pass to the 7card sports centers stands at RON 120 in Bucharest and RON 110 in the country.
Benefit Seven company was set up in 2011 by Andrei Crețu, Iulian Cîrciumaru and Cătălin Ivașcu, and was the first one in Romania to introduce the concept of passes providing access to more sports and wellness centers at the same time. In February 2016, Sodexo took over 20% of the Benefit Seven shares and is to become the majority shareholder this year.