PLNT - Planet Fitness sees comparative decline in club usage during September

Planet Fitness ( NYSE: PLNT ) saw a decline in usage during September, according to geolocation foot traffic data from Placer.

Club usage for Planet Fitness ( PLNT ) was noted to have decelerated to 97% of 2019 levels from 122% in August.

Bank of America attributed the drop to a loss of traffic from PLNT's High School Summer Pass, a program that allowed teens a chance to work out for free from May 16 to August 31. The summer pass ended with 3.5M participants and 17M workouts with 67% of teens having never been in a fitness club before joining. Planet Fitness ( PLNT ) has converted the high school participants in prior years, although it believes the conversion rate may be lower this year as usage dipped below 2019 levels for the first time since January.

"We believe conversion may eventually accelerate as 2% of teens in 2019 joined 3 months following, which eventually reached 25% of all participants."

Overall industry-wide club usage decelerated in September in comparison to Placer data in 2019 including at Anytime Fitness (97% of 2019), 24 Hour Fitness (98%), and LA Fitness (91%). Crunch fitness outperformed with usage at 107% of 2019 levels in September.

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