He Built The Giant.
Then He Came Back
To Fight It.
An independent brand assessment of Leejam and Armah — two gyms, two bets on the Saudi fitness market, and the most compelling competitive story in the Kingdom’s booming wellness sector.
largest fitness chain in MENA
all at full capacity with waitlists
projected SAR 15.5B by 2030
Alhagbani exited in 2018
A billion-dollar arena that
nobody fully owns yet.
Saudi Arabia’s fitness market doubled from SAR 3.4 billion in 2017 to SAR 7.7 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach SAR 15.5 billion by 2030. The engine is Vision 2030’s Quality of Life Programme, which targets raising the physically active population from under 15% to 40%. The government is manufacturing demand at national scale.
But the market is running two races simultaneously. The first is a volume race: budget and mid-market gyms chasing the 92% of Saudis who aspire to be healthier but are not yet members. The second is a premium race: boutique and luxury fitness growing at 13.56% CAGR, driven by a rising affluent class that has experienced world-class facilities abroad and expects the same at home. Leejam is winning the first race. Armah is winning the second.
Leejam: The infrastructure
of Saudi fitness.
Leejam is not a gym company in the traditional sense. It is a fitness infrastructure company. With 211 clubs, 500,000 active members, and SAR 1.5 billion in annual revenue, it operates at a scale no regional competitor can match. Its six sub-brands cover every demographic, price point, and format Fitness Time, Plus, Pro, Ladies, Xpress, and Junior. It is a system, not just a chain.
The financial trajectory is as important as the scale. Net profit grew 28% year-on-year to SAR 456 million in 2024. The stock is up 44% in one year. Personal training revenue the highest-margin line grew 43% year-on-year. Leejam is not just big. It is getting more profitable faster as it gets bigger a classic scale advantage compounding in real time.
"Leejam does not need to win a brand battle. It already owns the battlefield — the infrastructure, the footprint, the members. The question is whether the market moves toward it, or past it."
Public Pixel
Armah: The bet that the
market is ready to grow up.
Fahad Alhagbani knows more about the Saudi fitness consumer than almost anyone alive. He co-founded BodyMasters in 1994, built Fitness Time from a single club in Tabuk to 150 clubs across the region, took it public at €700 million in 2018 and then walked away to build its opposite.
Armah is not a reaction to Leejam’s weaknesses. It is a prediction about where the Saudi fitness consumer is going next. Designed by London architecture firm Shed, each 40,000 sq ft club is built to five-star private members club standard indoor track, 25m pool, Technogym equipment, spa, co-working space. It was oversubscribed before it opened. All three clubs hit full capacity by July 2024, with waitlists of hundreds. The founder predicted the demand before the demand announced itself.
Why they are not actually
fighting each other.
Leejam and Armah are not competing for the same member. A Leejam Fitness Time member pays SAR 100–200 per month for reliable access to a clean, well-equipped gym near their home. An Armah member is on a waitlist for an exclusive private members club experience that does not exist anywhere else in Riyadh. These consumers do not cross over.
The real competition for Leejam is GymNation, PureGym, and budget international chains entering Saudi Arabia with aggressive pricing. The real competition for Armah is international luxury brands Equinox, David Lloyd Clubs if and when they enter at scale. The fight is not between yellow and purple. Each is fighting its own war on a different front.
"Leejam wins the next five years on every number an investor tracks. But Armah wins the conversation — and in a market growing this fast, owning the aspiration is how you win the decade."
Public Pixel
The split decision
no one expected.
This is what brand assessment
looks like when it reads the room.
Public Pixel has no commercial relationship with Leejam Sports, Armah Sports, or any affiliated entity. This is an independent analysis built on public data the same kind of structured market reading we produce for brands navigating Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
We published this because the Leejam vs Armah dynamic is the most instructive brand story in Saudi Arabia right now. It shows what happens when a market matures fast enough to support two completely different winning strategies simultaneously and what it takes to be on the right side of each one.
If you want this level of analysis applied to your brand your market, your competitors, your positioning gaps that is the work Public Pixel does.
Position your brand in the Saudi fitness market.
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Data & Sources
Every figure, ranking, and observation in this analysis is traceable to a publicly available source.
Brand scorecards, radar comparisons, positioning scatter maps, and segment CAGR analyses are frameworks developed by Public Pixel based on the sourced data above. Scores represent informed analytical judgment, not externally validated metrics.
This is an independent analysis published by Public Pixel for research and capability demonstration. Public Pixel has no commercial relationship with Leejam Sports, Armah Sports, Optimo, or any affiliated entities.