WW (Weight Watchers) Statistics, Facts & History

Industry: Diet & Weight Loss
Owner: Weight Watchers International
Business Started: 1963
Countries of Operation: 30 in total - including United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, ...

Overview

WW (Weight Watchers) is about a way of life and living healthier. It's core approach is to assist members in losing weight through eating more healthily and getting more exercise. To help in this approach WW designed a Freestyle program that uses a point system called SmartPoints (and FitPoints for activities). Every food and drink is assigned a point value and every person is assigned a total daily SmartPoints budget once they complete the Weight Watchers online personal assessment. The SmartPoints budget is based on their gender, age, height, and current weight. SmartPoints is calculated using kilojoules (calories), saturated fat, sugar and protein. No food is off-limits, but the plan assigns higher points values to foods higher in sugar or saturated fat, and lower points values to lean proteins. Most fruits and vegetables are zero points.

Subscribers can access Weight Watchers in a number of ways. This includes:

OnlinePlus - Plan your WW Freestyle program, personalize and track SmartPoints, FitPoints and weight online
Meetings - Ideal for in-person motivation
Personal Coaching - help with one-on-one action plans

For more information about this company please see our detailed WW (Weight Watchers) information page.

History of Facts & Statistics

2019

Blue Apron partnered with Weight Watchers to offer a WW Freestyle menu to its customers. Blue Apron pays a fee to Weight Watchers for each subscriber that joins as a result of the partnership. [1]
Kate Hudson has joined Weight Watchers as a brand ambassador. This is to help with the company’s overall shift from a diet company to a “wellness” brand. [2]
Weight Watchers recently partnered with Aaptiv, a leading audio fitness app, and Headspace, a popular mediation app. This allows members to access healthy tools in addition to the WW points system. [2]

References

2018

In a 6 month clinical trial of the Freestyle System, WW researchers found: [1]
- 82.2% of participants reported that WW Freestyle is easier to do than previous system.
- Participants of the trial experienced an average weight loss of 7.9%.
- Participants also found significant reductions in food cravings and hunger.
DJ Khaled is the new social media spokesperson for Weight Watchers. He has millions of followers on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. [2]
Since Oprah became a spokesperson in 2015, Weight Watchers stock has grown 574%, including almost 300% in 2017. [2]
Weight Watchers expects to bring in more than $2 billion in revenue over the next two years. [3]
Weight Watchers says it will remove artificial ingredients from all of their foods. [3]
Weight Watchers will begin offering free memberships to teens ages 13-17 this summer. [3]
Weight Watchers saw an 18% surge in the price of its stock on February 7, bringing it to $74.37 by end of day. Before the jump, the stock was already up 42 percent in 2018. [3]
WW sometimes sends texts and small gifts to members who reach their weight loss goals. [3]
Oprah Winfrey sold almost a quarter of her shares of Weight Watchers in early March. She made almost 9 times the amount she paid for them. She also announced that she wouldn’t be selling any more shares this year. Weight Watchers stock was not negatively affected by the news of the stock Oprah sold. [4]
Weight Watchers plans to offer a Meal Kit service for customers who wish to loose weight. [5]
Weight Watchers reported a decline in subscribers since the previous quarter, down to 2.5 million from 2.6 million. [6]
Weight Watchers is enhancing its technology to appeal to more customers, offering cloud-based mobile services and putting money into digital advertising rather than TV ads. [6]
Weight Watchers is being re-branded as a wellness company. [6]
Weight Watchers shares have grown substantially this past year by over 175 percent. Since Oprah Winfrey joined as spokesperson in 2015, shares have risen more than 1,100 percent. [6]
Weight Watchers announced it changed its company name to WW in an effort to rebrand itself as a wellness company. [7]
WW plans to launch a new app that partners with Headspace, a popular meditation app. [7]
WW will launch a new program soon called “Wellness Wins” that rewards members for adopting healthier habits. [7]
All artificial ingredients will be removed from WW foods, including artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives. [7]
WW offers integration with Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. [7]
Soon customers can find other people over the WW app in “Connect Groups,” based on their personal goals. [7]
Weight Watchers holds more than 30,000 weekly meetings. [7]

References

2017

U.S. News & World Report ranks Weight Watchers first in 4 out of 9 categories for the 2017 Best Diets. [1]
Weight Watcher subscribers increased for three straight quarters in 2016. [1]
In January Oprah has now lost 40 pounds since she has been on Weight Watchers. [1]
Total subscribers for 2016 up 10% when compared to 2015 to 2.6 million. [2]
Revenues in Q4 2016 up 3% when compared to same quarter last year to $267 million. [2]
Incoming online subscribers for Q4 2016 was over 1.6 million. [2]
Incoming meeting subscribers for Q4 2016 was over 1.2 million. [2]
32,000 Weight Watchers meetings are held around the world each year and are run by more than 9,000 leaders. [3]
In Q1 of 2017 Weight Watchers subscriber base rose 16% year over year to 3.6 million. Revenue also rose to $329 million. [4]
In June, Weight Watchers stock rose 29%. The company’s stock closed in May at $25.95 per share, and when June ended shares had risen to $33.42. [4]
Weight Watchers hired Mindy Grossman as its new CEO. She came on board in July. [4]
Weight Watchers added 200 new approved foods to the zero point list including chicken, corn, yogurt, and fish. [5]
Weight Watchers introduces new WW Freestyle program on Dec 4 which gives participants much more freedom in making food choices. This is an update to the SmartPoints system and it still uses SmartPoints to track food intake. [5]
Weight Watchers had 3.4 million subscribers as of the third quarter this year. This is the highest number of memberships in half a decade. [5]

References

2016

CEO Jim Chambers stepped down in September. Weight Watchers is now run by a team of executives until a new CEO is found. [1]
In January Oprah has now lost 26 pounds since she has been on Weight Watchers. [1]
20 million Weight Watchers members have gone inactive the past few years. [2]
Weight Watchers drops it's old point system in December of 2015 (PointsPlus and ActivePoints) and goes "Beyond the Scale" with the release of SmartPoints and FitPoints. [3]

References

2015

In September Oprah Winfrey became the spokesperson for Weight Watchers. [1]
In October Oprah Winfrey purchased a 10% stake in Weight Watchers. [1]
A British study has found Weight Watchers a more effective and wallet-friendly weight loss strategy than family doctor-based services. Those following the Weight Watches program had lost 3x the weight of those in the physician-supervised group. [2]
A study based in New York city found that Weight Watchers helped dieters shed more pounds than psychologist-led "behavioral weight loss" programs. [3]
Between 2004 and 2014, UK Weight Watcher members in total lost 112 million pounds. [4]
According to Weight Watchers in 2011 2 million people signed up and lost a total of 11 million pounds. [4]

References

2013

In 2013 Weight Watchers annual revenue was $1.724 billion with a net income of $204.7 million. [1]
Weight Watchers currently has about 25,000 employees. [1]

References

Weight Watchers Wikipedia Page ^[1]

2012

Weight Watchers came in at number 4 for the "Best Diets Overall" category by U.S. News and World Report. [1]
Points for fruit have been removed from the Weight Watchers Points Plus system. [2]
Weight Watchers 360 is introduced which focused on building healthful habits and fighting hedonic hunger. ActiveLink physical activity monitor is also released. [3]

References

2010

PointsPlus was introduced in November. It's focus is on assisting members in creating a calorie deficit to lose weight using an updated calculation approach using total fat, carbohydrate, dietary fibre, and protein [1]

References

Weight Watchers Wikipedia Page ^[1]

1997

First points system was introduced for weight loss. [1]
Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, was a spokesperson for Weight Watchers from 1997 till 2008 (11 years). [2]

References

Annotations

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