MAM
HealthifyMe launches ‘FitFest 21’; Asia’s first virtual fitness festival
In a bid to rally all those who have had to put their fitness goals on pause due to COVID 19, HealthifyMe, India’s leading AI-led health and fitness app announces the launch of Asia’s first-ever virtual fitness festival, ‘FitFest 21’. The month-long virtual festival spanning the entire January aims to encourage everyone to break the pause, work online from the comfort of their homes, and get back to their fitness goals in 2021. The campaign invites people to access the biggest digital fitness festival for free and win exciting prizes like Apple’s iPad Air, Apple Watch, Bose Headphones, Apple AirPods, and Dyson Air Purifier amongst others. HealthifyMe is promoting FitFest 21 widely on social media, across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and aims to onboard over 200,000 participants for the fest. FitFest video
The festival aims to focus on every aspect of fitness and brings together a host of activities including daily live workouts and cooking sessions, bite-sized courses on diet and fitness, celebrity master classes, health quizzes, and games as well as exclusive interviews with HealthifyMe users and coaches who have achieved remarkable transformations during the pandemic. The idea is to get users excited and motivated about their fitness goals for 2021 and to show that exceptional results are possible remotely from the comfort of their homes. The users will have to download the HealthifyMe app on their mobile devices to be part of the festival.
Tushar Vashisht, Co-founder and CEO, HealthifyMe said, “We are excited to bring Asia’s largest online festival to HealthifyMe. FitFest will have 200+ special live workouts, masterclasses and tips by top chefs and trainers, and lakhs of rupees worth of daily prizes to be won daily. Through this campaign, we aim to encourage people to make the most of the present circumstances and restart the new year with positivity & zeal. We are also delighted to celebrate stories of fortitude and inspiration – of coaches and customers who have achieved phenomenal milestones and built stronger bodies and minds during the pandemic times. We hope that everyone can #Restart 2021 with renewed hope, inspiration, and fitness, and FitFest aims to deliver exactly that.”
2020 changed the way fitness is delivered with consumers moving away from co-workout spaces like gyms, studios, and even parks due to COVID 19 and instead relying on online fitness services. HealthifyMe saw its user-base grow by 4 million during 2020, as users thronged to the platform to experiment with online workout and diet plans to keep their fitness goals on track. In June, HealthifyMe had introduced HealthifyStudio, which brought together leading fitness coaches from across the world and marked its entry into the online workout space. Hundreds of users today workout virtually daily and the number is growing by 10% month on month.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
