Web Traffic to U.S. Weight Loss Market in February 2023 Down 19% Year-Over-Year, Off 33% from 2021

The start of the year is always a strong demand period for weight loss companies, with consumers eager to start their New Year’s resolutions and start the year in a more healthy way. For five leading weight loss companies (Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, Atkins, Noom, and Jenny Craig), demand in 2023 has been significantly weaker than over the past two years.

Key takeaways

• Similarweb data on aggregated traffic to five leading weight loss companies shows the group was down 19% in February, year-over-year, after falling 25% in January.
• February also dropped 34% from January, in a normal seasonal decline, as January New Year’s resolutions seem to recede every year.
• Weight Watchers remains the leader in the space, with a 52% share of traffic among the five companies we looked at, but its share of traffic has fallen. Noom takes second place with a 23% share of traffic, followed by Nutrisystem (18%).

Weight loss trending in the wrong direction, and demand losing steam

Aggregated web traffic to the five weight loss companies declined 19% in February 2023, year-over-year, after falling 25% in January. Against 2021, February web traffic was down 33%. On a month-over-month basis, February is always weaker than January, and that trend held this year too, with aggregated web traffic down 34% month-over-month.

Looking at the individual companies, Weight Watchers (6.1 million visits) saw a 26% decline in February (year-over-year) and web traffic was off 43% from February 2021. Noom (2.7 million visits) was down 7% from 2022, and down 15% from 2021. Atkins (504k visits) dropped 41% from 2022 and was down 46% from 2021.  Nutrisystem (2.1 million visits) was flat by 2022, but down 15% from 2021. Jenny Craig was a bright spot, up 18% year over year, and up 23% from 2021, but they have the smallest share of traffic among the peers we looked at in this report, with February web traffic of just 261k.

Weight Watchers dominates peer group in the share of traffic

A look at the share of traffic among the five competitors we looked at shows Weight Watchers leading with 1 52% share of traffic among the five peers in this cohort, followed by Noom at 23%, Nutrisystem at 18%, Atkins at 4% and Jenny Craig at 2%.

However, Weight Watchers has lost share versus peers

While maintaining a large lead in share of traffic, Weight Watchers’ share of this peer group dipped to 52% in February 2023, versus 57% a year earlier. Noom and Nutrisystem, by virtue of seeing their web traffic decline at a slower rate than Weight Watchers, gained share, with Noom rising to 23% from 21%, and Nutrisystem rising to 18% from 15%.

Atkins saw its share decline to 4% from 6%. Jenny Craig saw its share jump to 2%, though it remains the smallest in the group.

Converted visits tell a similar story

Similarweb has conversion data on three of the five competitors in this report (Weight Watchers, Noom, and Nutrisystem). Converted visits are visits to a company’s website that leads to a sale, so it is directionally aligned with a company’s revenues. And the direction is the wrong one.

The three companies saw aggregated converted visits fall 34% in February (year over year) after a 38% drop in January. Weight Watchers was down 44% in February, after a 38% drop in January. Noom was down 13% in February after a 53% decline in January. Nutrisystem was down 26% in February and 4% in January.

The weight loss category trending poorly overall

This overall data speaks to an industry seeing falling demand, with web traffic and converted visits down for most of the competitors. While Weight Watchers still dominates, its share is falling and the overall market is declining as well.

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Methodology

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by Jim Corridore

Senior Analyst

Jim provides insights across multiple sectors. With 30 years on Wall Street and numerous awards for stock-picking, he is a SUNY Albany graduate.