Japan's major sports club chains have been flexing their muscle in recent years, expanding their businesses through aggressive mergers and acquisitions as well as by opening new outlets.
Konami Sports Corp., by far the largest sports club chain with an 830,000-strong membership and 233 outlets nationwide, is projecting group sales to increase by 132 percent to 80 billion yen in the current business year through March 2003.
It hopes to achieve this on the strength of 60 new outlets it bought from struggling supermarket chain Daiei earlier this year and 23 more it plans to open on its own.