FirstRep H1 2026 Market Pulse: The State of Nigeria's Gym Industry

Nigeria's fitness market looks bigger and more visible than it did a few years ago. i-Fitness alone has scaled to 30 locations and over 40,000 active users. Pricing has jumped 70-90% at the top of the market. New expos and fitness events are popping up in Lagos almost every quarter.

On paper, it looks like an industry maturing fast.

But after six months of conversations with gym owners, managers, and members across Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and beyond, we found something less visible than the growth headlines: most gyms still can't answer a simple question — how many of their members are actually still coming?

Payments have gone digital. Bank transfer and POS now dominate. But member administration hasn't caught up. Inactive members usually get noticed the old-fashioned way: a staff member happens to remember a face that's been missing. Not because a system flagged it.

That gap, between digitized payments and undigitized retention tracking, is the single biggest theme in our findings.

A few other things stood out:

• Monthly memberships are quietly becoming the market default, not annual plans
• Members care more about community and accountability than most owners assume
• Q4 isn't a demand problem, it's a competing-for-attention problem (holidays, travel, spending pull people away, not laziness)
• The next wave of growth may not come from Lagos alone. Cities like Ibadan, Edo, and Ogun are showing real early signals

We put all of this, plus the full pricing breakdown, seasonal attendance patterns, and our H2 recommendations for operators, into a full market report.

Click here to read the full report