Basic-Fit is set to continue its ambitious growth and expansion plans in Europe, following a 42 per cent increase in membership since the beginning of 2022.

Offering its Q3 2022 trading update, the budget fitness chain said the total number of members at its clubs grew from 2.22 million to 3.15 million during the first nine months of the year (to the end of September).

During the period (nine months to end of September), Basic-Fit opened 145 new clubs.

The chain has bounced back well from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It create revenues of €563m during the first nine months of 2022, compared to €186m in the same period last year – when club closures and other pandemic disruption severely limited fitness operations.

The group has also been successful in promoting its premium membership offer, with the take-up rate of its Premium membership by joiners increased to around 50 per cent.

The Premium membership costs €29.99 a month and offers access to all Basic-Fit's 1,100+ clubs across Europe. The basic membership is tied to one club and costs €19.99.

As a result of the increased take-up, average revenue per member has increased to €22.50 a month during 2022.

Rene Moos, Basic-Fit CEO, said the results mean that the chain will continue with its expansion push.

Moos said Basic-Fit will have 1,200 clubs by the end of 2022, with another "200 to 300" new openings in the pipeline for 2023.

"​​In the third quarter we continued to see a strong development of our membership base with high joiner numbers and leaver numbers below the level that we saw prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic," Moos said.

"The membership development continued to be healthy in October. The recovery of our mature clubs was strong as well, as expected, and we passed the 3,300 memberships mark already in October.

"During the year we experienced increasing delays in obtaining licenses for the construction of new clubs. As a result, we now expect to end 2022 with 1,200 clubs. About 50 clubs that were originally planned to open in the second half of 2022, are now expected to open in January 2023.

"Considering the current inflationary environment and the energy pricing development in Europe, we will be flexible with our club openings programme in 2023. In line with our longer-term guidance, we expect to open between 200 and 300 clubs.

"Depending on the macro-economic environment this could be at the lower or higher end of the range. There is no change in our long-term target of growing our network to 3,000 to 3,500 clubs by 2030.

"As a result of the lower number of club openings and the shift in timing of club openings towards the back end of the year, we now expect to end the year with around 3.35 million memberships, an increase of 50 per cent.

"We expect to report revenue of approximately €800m in 2022. Underlying EBITDA is expected to come in between €200m and €205m, compared to the prior guidance of around €225m.

"We are pleased with the increasing uptake of Premium memberships, which has a positive effect on the average revenue per membership going forward.

"At the start of the year the uptake was in the mid-twenties, and we have seen it increase to around 50% of joiners in the third quarter.

"With the recovery of the mature club membership base, and with the important January and February months still ahead, we expect that the average number of members at mature clubs will reach a higher level in 2023 than in 2019.

"The expected higher yield and higher number of memberships per mature club in 2023 will help the company to absorb the impact of inflation on operating costs and to get back to the average underlying mature club EBITDA of 2019, whilst maintaining a very competitive membership pricing of €19.99.”