Other brands of treadmills have killed kids as well. There are other brands that have and continue to use the exact same design as the Peloton treadmill. I guess you are saying that they should wait until they kill a kid before they are included?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Floated as Potential Buyer of Peloton
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Peloton also has this fitness offering similar to Apple Fitness+. No bike needed.
It seems at the surface that Apple buying Peloton makes sense… IF Apple has ANY interest selling the bikes in their stores ? (I don’t see it though.)
Maybe Google will buy them and pair them with their goggles.
It seems at the surface that Apple buying Peloton makes sense… IF Apple has ANY interest selling the bikes in their stores ? (I don’t see it though.)
Maybe Google will buy them and pair them with their goggles.
Their basic bike is $1500. It's very good hardware for the price point.
Also, their culture is toxic, so Apple isn’t buying IP, a positive brand name, or a culture they want to absorb. The only reason to buy them is to remove a competitor, which they appear eager to do on their own.
Peloton demographic = upper middle to upper class Karens who live in exurbs and drink from Yeti travel mugs. It deserves to go under.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. What Peloton has is a business model that works. People buy their equipment, and then a huge percentage of them continue to use, and continue to pay to use it over the long run. It's exactly what Apple wants from their Fitness+ service and has not been successfully implemented by anyone else. Similar to the Beats acquisition - Apple would not be purchasing IP. They would be purchasing a user base that models what they are going after.
Other brands make treadmills with a giant touchscreen that can fall off during use, and split the tread leading to them being pulled under their equipment?
This is almost certainly not happening. Someone is trying to pump their stock by floating rumors that they’re going to be acquired by a big, solvent company.
Apple may have interest in making smart home gym equipment but I don’t think they‘d need Peleton to do it. They’d be better served buying a traditional gym equipment brand and applying what they’ve already learned with the Watch and Fitness+.
Apple may have interest in making smart home gym equipment but I don’t think they‘d need Peleton to do it. They’d be better served buying a traditional gym equipment brand and applying what they’ve already learned with the Watch and Fitness+.
Agreed but sometimes you can't. So in that case use Zwift and a trainer. For a short period, I thought of Peleton but it is different. A friend explained to me, that it is spinning and not biking. I finally got a smart trainer, hopefully will like it. I have seen some Apple Fitness Cycle video's but as I said earlier it is spinning.
I have seen some rowing videos on Apple Fitness, those are bad. The technique is terrible but I guess it is different than people using Concept2 rowers. However, I have found other videos very useful.
I remember Steve Jobs taking over a hot mess of a company after he stepped away from Pixar.
Right, but my point is that their business model, while successful up until now, is not well-protected from competition. The problem with acquiring a user base is that Apple would pay what the user base is worth (in terms of expected future revenues, etc.). So the key questions are, how would Apple extract more value from the user base than Peloton can on its own? Would Apple be able to expand the user base beyond what Peloton has been able to do, in the face of mounting, lower-cost competition?
Can't comment on their (overpriced) equipment since I've never used it, but the Peloton subscription service is miles ahead of Fitness+ in content, variety and instructors.
Wait a minute and let's have a very quick think.
From the article Peloton's market cap is $7.9 billion, although in a fire sale it'll likely go for a lot less than that. They're in trouble financially, they're paying staff off. They may have a loyal following who've bought quite expensive physical goods and have a subscription. They probably are looking for a buyer/white knight and probably would be open to offers.
So, assuming Apple actually wants to get into the spin/cycle arena at all, there are at least two options open to them:-
1) Acquire Peloton (with all the issues it has), prop it up financially for a while, migrate the workouts/classes to Fitness+, update/integrate existing software into Fitness+ and then transfer all their subscribers to Apple Fitness+.
OR
2) Spend (probably a lot less than) $7.9Bn on hiring instructors and maybe a few Peloton developers, partner with a bike company (or develop a branded bike with Nike?♂️) with a decent iPhone/iPad mount on it and ramp up advertising.
Now, we (the readers) mostly have no real insider data/facts/strategic plans knowledge at all, but at first glance, my view is that option two is the one to really study before thinking about option one.
From the article Peloton's market cap is $7.9 billion, although in a fire sale it'll likely go for a lot less than that. They're in trouble financially, they're paying staff off. They may have a loyal following who've bought quite expensive physical goods and have a subscription. They probably are looking for a buyer/white knight and probably would be open to offers.
So, assuming Apple actually wants to get into the spin/cycle arena at all, there are at least two options open to them:-
1) Acquire Peloton (with all the issues it has), prop it up financially for a while, migrate the workouts/classes to Fitness+, update/integrate existing software into Fitness+ and then transfer all their subscribers to Apple Fitness+.
OR
2) Spend (probably a lot less than) $7.9Bn on hiring instructors and maybe a few Peloton developers, partner with a bike company (or develop a branded bike with Nike?♂️) with a decent iPhone/iPad mount on it and ramp up advertising.
Now, we (the readers) mostly have no real insider data/facts/strategic plans knowledge at all, but at first glance, my view is that option two is the one to really study before thinking about option one.
Largely agree that Peloton are too overpriced to ever really be mass-market. Don’t see Apple buying them.
Following months of bleak news about Peloton's "precarious state," including the revelation that it has halted production of its bikes and treadmills, Apple is being floated as a potential buyer of Peloton's troubled fitness business.
Yesterday, CNBC reported that Peloton will temporarily stop production of its connected fitness products due to a "significant reduction" in consumer demand, a pressing need to control costs, and amplified competitor activity. In a confidential company presentation earlier this month, Peloton told employees that products such as the Bike, Bike+, and Tread will be out of production for between six weeks and six months.
As a business, Peloton has high customer acquisition costs, translating to high product pricing. Toward the end of last year, the company reduced the price of its entry-level bike by almost 20 percent to $1,495 in an attempt to drive up sales through the end of 2021. It then emerged that the company is planning to lay off 41 percent of its sales and marketing staff.
CNBC also revealed that the company's fiscal forecasts do not take into account new delivery and setup fees between $250 and $350 that customers will have to pay on top of the cost of the Bike or Tread. In addition, Peloton has seen low email capture rates for its upcoming $495 strength training product, "Peloton Guide."
In a press release preannouncing its upcoming financial results yesterday, Peloton CEO John Foley said that the company is now "taking significant corrective actions to improve our profitability outlook and optimize our costs." Peloton's stock has since plunged 24 percent, now floating around 85 percent below where it was trading this time last year, and even $5 less than when it went public in 2019. There are also indications that Peloton is losing market share in the connected fitness industry.
The Information reports that Peloton's production halt and the precarious state of its business looks like a prelude to an acquisition by a bigger company, positing that Apple is the ideal candidate to buy Peloton:
The idea of Apple acquiring Peloton is gathering steam among market observers, with the possibility being weighed up by The Motley Fool and Inc., among others.
Analyst Neil Cybart recently highlighted how Peloton is now actively threatened by Apple Fitness+, which is considerably cheaper, costing up to $388.01 less annually for digital classes alone. Cybart cautioned that without major changes in 2022, "Peloton is on track to be a Fitbit 2.0 - a company unable to compete with the giants subsidizing health and fitness tracking as an ecosystem feature."
Article Link: Apple Floated as Potential Buyer of Peloton
I have wanted this acquisition for a while now. I really like the peloton and their instructors-- but think a pairing with apple vs apple trying to do fitness+ doesn't make sense. Making peloton part of apple fitness+ ecosystem makes sense.
Scrap the "guide" product and use lidar in an iPhone or iPad.
There will quickly be an ecosystem of accessories to turn every bike into an apple bike with an iPad and a few adatpors.
They can continue to sell a high-end apple bike and apple fitness gear. Wouldnt be their biggest business but would def be a nice companion business. The current MC is 7.9b my guess is a $10b buy and the deal gets done. Thats an almost nothing-burger to apple.
Close some stores and turn others into fitness-oriented sales stores.
I'd be happy to see this happen.
Except that you don't get the same thing with "any cheap bike/treadmill" you're spot on.