Popular exercise- and nutrition-tracking service MyFitnessPal is making its first significant effort to reach an international audience.
Co-founder Mike Lee said that MyFitnessPal now has “well north of” 40 million registered users. That already includes users in other countries: “In absolute numbers it’s large, but … it’s just a small percentage of our total userbase.” So Lee argued that there’s a big opportunity in creating localized versions of the service.
That’s what the company is announcing today. The smartphone app and website are now available in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese. They also support local units of measurement, so when users try to track how much they’ve been running or how much they’ve eaten, they can record it in kilometers and kilojoules. MyFitnessPal’s food database is adding around 600,000 international items (thanks to both the company’s efforts and its users). And it’s now offering localized message boards for customer support in South America and Europe.
As part of today’s update, MyFitnessPal is also releasing a redesigned Android app, with the aim of improving navigation and providing more consistent navigation. You can see a screenshot of the redesign to the right.
Next up are Nordic languages, Italian, and Russian, Lee said. The company also plans to do more to customize the service for different countries — after all, different regions may have slightly different cultures around health and fitness.
“Countries around the world are seeing the same negative health trends as in the U.S.,” he added. “There’s been a huge opportunity, and we now have the resources to do the work needed to create a great experience for international users.”
This global push will be backed up by the opening of international offices, but Lee said it’s too soon to announce anything specific. You can read more details in the company’s blog post.