Brazilian gym chain SmartFit is set to speed up its expansion across South America.

The chain currently has 600 locations across Brazil, Mexico, Chile, The Dominican Republic, Peru, Colombia, Argentina and Ecuador – and last year grew its membership by 34 per cent.

SmartFit is part of the São Paulo-based Bio Ritmo Group, which in 2018 was ranked eighth on the IHRSA Global 25 list in terms of number of members, with 1,508,000 at the end of 2017.

It has since grown the number of members across its network of clubs to more than 2 million.

As part of the growth strategy, SmartFit has signed a deal with equipment provider Life Fitness to kit out 450 clubs – which will be a mixture of new sites and the redevelopment of existing sites.

"In order to continue to grow strongly, we needed a solid and robust company to be our partner in almost every unit of this Latin American expansion," said Thiago Somera, infrastructure director of the Bio Ritmo Group.

"With Life Fitness, we have achieved the reliability to go through this process and fulfill our purpose of fitness' democratisation on high standards."