2025 State of Mobile: Health & Fitness Surges into the New Year

Health & Fitness achieved record high downloads and  in-app purchase (IAP) revenue in 2024, a nice rebound following back-to-back years of slowing growth coming out of the pandemic. And early results reveal a strong start to 2025, boosted by New Year’s resolutions and increased focus on health to start the year. Preliminary downloads for January 2025 were up slightly year-over-year (YoY) to reach their highest total since January 2022. Meanwhile, IAP revenue in January 2025 soared 10% YoY to reach a new all-time high at $385 million.

In Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 Report, we highlight 10 different app categories, including the state of Health & Fitness leading into peak demand in the new year. Dive deep into the latest trends across 23 markets and uncover which apps broke through in 2024. And for more analysis, check out our blog post highlighting the biggest trends of the year.

Fitness on the Go

Global Health & Fitness app downloads reached a new high at 3.6 billion across iOS and Google Play, up 6% YoY. This reflects the strength of the mobile Health & Fitness market after a few volatile years, from a surge in demand in 2020 to the market correcting with slight YoY declines in 2022 and 2023. In 2024, Gyms & Fitness retained its position as the top subgenre by downloads, experiencing moderate global growth with a 3% YoY increase (and accounting for seven of the top 10 Health & Fitness apps by global downloads).

Meanwhile, the Medical Tracking app landscape is evolving rapidly, driven by technological advancements and growing consumer awareness of personalized healthcare. In 2024, the Medical Tracking subgenre saw a remarkable 43% increase in downloads YoY. Leading this surge was Health Tracker, released at the end of 2023, which quickly acquired new users, reaching 10 million MAUs just five months post-launch and maintaining over 12 million MAUs each month thereafter.

IAP revenue in this category has consistently grown across all major subgenres in recent years, though like downloads, revenue growth also accelerated in 2024. The United States was the top market, capturing more than half of global consumer spending in 2024, and there was a significant gap with the second-largest market, the UK, which accounted for an 8% revenue share. Look for Health & Fitness to fly past $4 billion in global IAP revenue in 2025, more than 100% growth over the past five years.

What’s driving this growth? Apps that get users outdoors and moving had a particularly strong year. Leaders by revenue growth included Strava, OnX Hunt, Runna, and AllTrails. It’s unsurprising that there could be some pent-up demand for consumers to get outdoors as we’ve seen signs of digital fatigue in other categories on mobile like social media and streaming.

Competition Heating Up for Fitness Rewards Apps

Continuing the theme of outdoor Health & Fitness, fitness tracking apps in the US have experienced significant growth in recent years, driven by increasing health awareness and a desire to stay active. Among them, apps with reward programs such as Sweatcoin, CashWalk, and WeWard, have gained popularity and stand out by incentivizing users to stay active by converting their steps into rewards.

Sweatcoin continued to lead the market, holding nearly a quarter of the MAU market share among leading fitness tracking apps. Meanwhile, new entrants in the US such as CashWalk and WeWard are rapidly acquiring new users, with their MAUs increasing by 42% and an astounding 609% YoY in 2024, respectively.

These fitness reward apps are also efficiently retaining users, with CashWalk and Sweatcoin's 30-day retention rates remaining at 31% and 20%, respectively, while other competitors struggle to maintain similar levels of user loyalty.

This and More in 2025 State of Mobile

Sensor Tower’s 2025 State of Mobile Report dives deep into regional and category-level market trends made possible by our award-winning digital market insights platform. Claim your copy of the State of Mobile 2025 today!