Apple Floated as Potential Buyer of Peloton

[smaffei]

Not surprised Peloton is on the down slope. The first casualties in a bad consumer economy are luxuries. The first thing people cut are services they can live without. You can buy a decent exercise bike for much less and train with almost free livestreams or YouTube videos.

Apple is not going to buy them. That is just a rumor floated by people that are trying to slow their losses on the plummeting Peloton stock.

 

[webkit]

Apple don’t buy what they can recreate.

Apple has made a number of acquisitions over the years in markets/products they were already in or “recreating” so to speak. Sometimes it's easier and cheaper to acquire if it can reduce competition and expand your customer base.

 

[ridddder55]

Instead of Peloton, I ride my bicycle outside in the fresh air. Much cheaper, and I get good-ole vitamin D!!!!!

Why freeze your ass off riding your bike when the wind chill is -5, but then you probably live in LA. For us east coast people, riding a bike in the winter makes less sense. Agree that Peloton is overpriced exercise gear, like the crazy iFit subscription that my Nordic Track elliptical wanted me to buy. I don't need a video of a trainer to make the experience less boring than it is already. I accept it is boring, and watch re-runs of old TV series I am a fan. The incentive then is to watch the next episode, I need to get more exercise which is the motivation I need.

 

[magicschoolbus]

This would be a home run for Gymkit and Apple Watch. Imagine walking up to weights (apple owns precor) that have an NFC chip in them that syncs w/ your Apple Watch so it knows how much you are lifting. Plus the peloton subs. Its their target market for sure. They are a buy.

 

[webkit]

The problem with Peloton was Covid surge in sales. They thought that this was going to be their future. But it was really just eating into future sales. Plus they totally handled the treadmill thing wrong. They should have seen this dip in sales coming and planned for it. Since the spike in sales was not natural during 2020.

Agree. Peloton is now priced/valued about where it was when it went public in September 2019, before the pandemic.

 

[Amadeo]

All of these comments are clearly from people who have never actually used a Peloton.

Agreed.

Apple didn't buy Beats for their business. They bought Beats to get Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre into the company. The headphones and hardware was secondary.

I think people have forgotten how and why the Beats acquisition happened. Apple bought Beats for the technology. Not the hardware, and only marginally for Iovine and Dre's industry relationships. Beats 1 was the underpinnings of Apple Music and the quick road for them to get into the streaming business without having to build something from scratch. Peloton doesn't have the same benefit.

Peloton didn't find themselves here because of the tragic treadmill situation or because the bike is too expensive. It was because of rosy growth expectations in a still largely unpredictable market. They made big bets on the future, hoping that the shift in consumer behavior around fitness was going to stick. But people returned to outdoor and gym activities in larger numbers (and probably sooner) than they expected. And the competitive landscape simply changed, getting more...well, competitive. They had aggressive growth and sustainment objectives that may have been unrealistic.

I love Peloton, and count myself among its acolytes, but I don't see Apple buying them. It would come with too many strings attached. The scalable portion of the business is just content, not technology. And content can be created. Are the instructors on Fitness+ as compelling? No. But they're more on brand for Apple than the Peloton instructors are. The apparel business is floundering for Peloton (I couldn't save them with all my purchases, unfortunately), and inheriting the hardware would be an albatross for them. They don't need it. They can just as easily partner — or not. In either case, Apple Watch users will turn to their watches to track the activity.

 

[4jasontv]

Buy a technogym product. I love mine. Simple to use, clean looking, full Apple HealthKit integration. And they have more designs and styles than I even knew existed.

 

[Cosmosent]

On CNBC yesterday as well, some Analyst floated the idea of Apple acquiring NFLX.

I don't see either happening !

Wall Street-driven acquisitions, ha'ha, NOT gonna happen !

 

[fel10]

Their product is extremely overpriced. Simple as that.

Apple or Peloton? Cause the saying can go to both

 

[nastysailboat]

Are Apple considering investing in Coal as well?

I agree this would be pretty ridiculous. It’s a $1400 bike that doesn’t even go any where. Not to mention it’s kinda a one time buy. It’s not like you ever upgrade it. I know they sold the treadmill too but that kinda went downhill after it’s started eating kids. I don’t see how they blamed apple for their sales dropping.

 

[fwmireault]

Apple didn't buy Beats for their business. They bought Beats to get Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre into the company. The headphones and hardware was secondary.

Apple also bought Beats to get their expertise in audio products and services. They replaced Beats Music with Apple Music. They developed HomePods and AirPods following the acquisition of Beats. Apple audio products (notably headphones) before the acquisition were okay but nowhere great.

 

[erikkfi]

The justification for Apple buying Peloton is… it would barely cost them anything? And they could sell Peloton equipment in their already-cramped Apple Stores? Wooo-weeee! That’s a great idea from the ol’ market analyst community!

 

[Robert.Walter]

Google will buy it.

Rename it.

Then kill it a couple years later.

 

[AlexisV]

Peloton is that thing where you have to pay £1500 for a bike and then £40 a month for an instructor to shout at you yeah?

 

[coachgq]

I’m surprised Peloton didn’t fail sooner. Expensive bikes, expensive subscription. You get the same thing with a phone/tablet and any cheap bike/treadmill paired with a subscription to some fitness program, many of which are cheaper than peloton or even free.

The only difference is the community and metrics That you get on the bike vs a generic setup. This coming from a Peloton user for bike and a Fitness+ user for all other workouts.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Of all the recent talk - this is one I would expect them to steer clear of. While they aren’t in the equipment business for fitness, Peloton can be used with just a TV or tablet with any piece of equipment. Apple is pushing into this space with Apple Fitness, and I’d think that an acquisition would be scrutinized as such… and why would they want the equipment business if the subscription business is what they’d want and what would draw ire?

 

[coachgq]

Peloton is that thing where you have to pay £1500 for a bike and then £40 a month for an instructor to shout at you yeah?

Exactly! Spot on. Don’t you love it?

 

[sw1tcher]

I fail to see your point and find your numbers suspect as well. Latest numbers have EV around what? 3% market share? Does that equal even half a trillion? Doubt it.

EV might be at 3% marketshare right now, but it's a growing market. ICE is dead. Every car manufacturer is tranisitioning to electric. That's the future. So you need to look at the total addressable market for the entire automotive market.

Global Car & Automobile Manufacturing Market Size Statistics | IBISWorld

Market Size statistics on the Global Car & Automobile Manufacturing industry in Global

www.ibisworld.com

Even if you look at just the cars themselves and exclude the manufacturing and parts side, it's still a $100 billion+ market

Global connected car market size 2028| Statista

The global connected car market is estimated to reach about 65 billion U.S.

www.statista.com

 

[Macintosh TV]

Why buy? Kill them then take their people. Why buy debt? That's stupid. This is business, not Sesame Street.

Clearly you don't understand the business world. Your take is incredibly shortsighted. It's not just debt. It's more than 1.4 million monthly subscribers. It's patents. It's an existing ecosystem of products.

Legitimate analysts are weighing in on why it'd be a good move. And all you offer is "It's just debt." ?

 

[webkit]

Peloton is that thing where you have to pay £1500 for a bike and then £40 a month for an instructor to shout at you yeah?

You don't have to buy a bike. You can also get just a Peloton app membership with accesses to classes/training for $12.99/month (USD).

 

[dr_lha]

Instead of Peloton, I ride my bicycle outside in the fresh air. Much cheaper, and I get good-ole vitamin D!!!!!

I also like to ride my bike outside, but right now it's 10F / -12C outside, which gives me terrible exercise induced asthma. Something to think about when giving this kind of smug answer. This is why I own a Wahoo KICKR which I use with an iPad and Zwift / Wahoo SYSTM.

 

[zhenya]

Great. Blame the victim here. The Peleton treadmill was a flawed design that didn't build on the decades of safety design that the industry learned. They made a dangerous treadmill that looked cool and basically said "F safety. A rear guard looks dumb. Let's get rid of it."

Wrong. The Peloton treadmill used a standard design that has and continues to be used for decades at the very high end of the market. None of them have guards, either. The difference is that Peloton started offering a product that was previously only available for about $10,000 for about half that, and people started using them more frequently in their homes.

The reality is that there are treadmill deaths of children that have happened before and will happen again - regardless of design. Peloton was simply a visible target.

 

[Macintosh TV]

Instead of Peloton, I ride my bicycle outside in the fresh air. Much cheaper, and I get good-ole vitamin D!!!!!

Not really realistic for many of us across the country. It's -8º here today. Few are biking outside in these temps but I did just ride for an hour at the gym (on a machine that costs much more than a Peleton.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

Smart trainers are better than their bikes. You get to ride the bike that you actually ride outside while staying in shape in the winter. Why anyone would pay the high price for a Peleton bike never made sense to me. I have a 6000 dollar real bike that I prefer to use when training on my Tacx trainer. During season I prefer to be outside.

 

[BF1M]

EV might be at 3% marketshare right now, but it's a growing market. ICE is dead. Every car manufacturer is tranisitioning to electric. That's the future. So you need to look at the total addressable market for the entire automotive market.

Global Car & Automobile Manufacturing Market Size Statistics | IBISWorld

Market Size statistics on the Global Car & Automobile Manufacturing industry in Global

www.ibisworld.com

Even if you look at just the cars themselves and exclude the manufacturing and parts side, it's still a $100 billion+ market

Global connected car market size 2028| Statista

The global connected car market is estimated to reach about 65 billion U.S.

www.statista.com

…..but it’s still not a trillion dollar market.

And not all manufacturers are switching to EV. Some of the biggest players still don‘t even offer hybrids.