LG-SM venture Fitness Candy to shutter on lack of gains in market

[FITNESS CANDY]

Fitness Candy, a digital health care venture established jointly by SM Entertainment and LG Electronics, will close its doors in two years after failing to make a breakthrough in the home fitness market.

The company announced in an electronic disclosure on Thursday that it held a shareholders' meeting on Monday to dissolve the company and initiate the liquidation process.

LG and SM established Fitness Candy in June 2022 with the aim of establishing a foothold in the rapidly expanding home fitness market, driven by the surge in demand during the Covid-19 pandemic.

LG Electronics owned 51 percent of the joint venture and rest was held by SM Entertainment.

The company’s initial business model planned to rely on an app with subscription-based home training services that utilized smartphones and smart TVs and could integrate data from smart bands, cameras and other exercise machines.

The company even had ambitions to expand overseas with distinctive services combining LG Electronics’ IT capabilities and SM Entertainment's music, dance and associated artists.

However, the launch of the app was delayed as the company's array of C-suite executives was shuffled.

Fitness Candy released a health care app known as Init in July 2023, which rewarded users when they cleared exercise missions. However, the service failed to turn a profit as the home fitness market retracted after the pandemic.

Fitness Candy logged an annual net loss of 3.29 billion won ($2.39 million) in 2022, which only widened the following the year to 5.67 billion won.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]