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Peloton Looking for Investor Like Apple to Buy 20% of Company
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I just created an account to just say this is by far the wildest claim I have heard for a need for a $5k bike?
I swear we find way too motivate ourselves in so many odd ways.
I bought myself a $700 a bike out in the beach path and enjoy fresh air, ocean breeze and I work out every morning.
Same here. The Peloton bike and the highly curated classes with great instructors are a gateway to fitness for me and adult members of my family.
You do you but not everyone lives near a beach, or has the time to go for a ride every morning.
The bike isn’t $5000 either. Right now it’s $1200, plus $250 for delivery and setup, plus $39 a month for the membership.
Peloton’s target market isn’t the person who wants to do a nice ride in fresh air, it’s the person who spends $34 for a single SoulCycle session, or who doesn’t live near a gym, or who works odd hours, or who likes fitness classes but is too embarrassed to attend one in person.
I’m not defending their recent excesses, but your comment is off base.
I wouldn’t say they got suckered into buying Beats. There were specific key strategic advantages to the Beats acquisition. It gave them a significantly lower cost streaming platform to use as the basis of Apple Music (far cheaper than the billions Spotify was trying to get for itself) and it probably allowed them to use Beats hardware engineers to accelerate the development of the AirPods lineup. As is, the AirPods were probably delayed, it seems like Apple wanted to launch them alongside the Apple Watch (since the two obviously pair together remarkably well) and, if the AirPods had been delayed much further, Apple likely would have had to delay the release of the iPhone 7.
Apple’s $3 billion purchase of Beats has already paid off
"Oh ****, the Forbes list just changed," Tyrese Gibson proclaimed in a 2014 Facebook video. "The first billionaire in hip-hop, right here from the **********ing West Coast," Dr. Dre chimed in.
Five years after the purchase it clearly looked a winner. It had vaulted them into 2nd place in music streaming and Apple had sold a ton of beats headphones (and still sells tons). If they show signs of decline now that's on the decisions Apple has made in the seven years they've owned both.
And Songza was shut down by Google (like all new Google products) after a couple years and merged into Google Play Music which was shut down by Google (like all new Google products) a few years later to merge into Youtube Music.
If Apple had owned Youtube, I doubt they would have ever bought Beats. They would have clearly worked to build it's music streaming service internally like they pretty much do with every product. Youtube Music is succeeding because of decisions the Youtube team made, not because of some tiny acquisition eight years ago.
BTW: If you think this was a poor end result for the Beats merger, then you are totally unaware of the typical poor results of corporate mergers. Now I have to change my previous position. It didn't just work out okay, it was a spectacular success.
Everything Apple did they could have done without beats. What did it actually do for Apple’s core business and/or brand? From that perspective, it was a major distraction, a waste of time, and a waste of money.
Apple’s $3 billion purchase of Beats has already paid off
"Oh ****, the Forbes list just changed," Tyrese Gibson proclaimed in a 2014 Facebook video. "The first billionaire in hip-hop, right here from the **********ing West Coast," Dr. Dre chimed in.www.engadget.com
Five years after the purchase it clearly looked a winner. It had vaulted them into 2nd place in music streaming and Apple had sold a ton of beats headphones (and still sells tons). If they show signs of decline now that's on the decisions Apple has made in the seven years they've owned both.
And Songza was shut down by Google (like all new Google products) after a couple years and merged into Google Play Music which was shut down by Google (like all new Google products) a few years later to merge into Youtube Music.
If Apple had owned Youtube, I doubt they would have ever bought Beats. They would have clearly worked to build it's music streaming service internally like they pretty much do with every product. Youtube Music is succeeding because of decisions the Youtube team made, not because of some tiny acquisition eight years ago.
BTW: If you think this was a poor end result for the Beats merger, then you are totally unaware of the typical poor results of corporate mergers. Now I have to change my previous position. It didn't just work out okay, it was a spectacular success.
I already detailed what it did, vaulting them to 2nd in streaming music, billions in headphone sales. You apparently know better than Apple management, never heard them call it a distraction, or a failure.
You’ll never hear management say they wasted $3.2B of shareholder money when they could have achieved the same results for $15mm.
Apple didn’t “vault” to second place. Apple Music was one of the worst, cringeworthy product launches in Apple history.
If anything, one could argue that Apple fell from a dominant #1 position in digital music to a distant second and will soon be third behind Google.
I’ve nothing against AM. I use it. But there’s no denying how badly Apple bungled its dominant position in the music business and buying beats did nothing for Apple in the overall scheme of things.
Cringeworthy is Spotify's software.
Apple doesn't care about Google or biggest market share. They want the best market share, just like in PCs, phones and tablets. If they wanted to fight it out for every last cheapskate user in the bottom end of the market they'd make $400 plastic laptops, $200 plastic phones and have Apple Music in a crappy Electron app.
Peloton was around far before the pandemic, in fact 8 years before. The pandemic spiked their growth and only fools expected that it would continue when the pandemic subsided.
If Apple could acquire at the right price it would be a huge boost to their fitness and health plans.
What would they be acquiring though?
Apple already has their own video/fitness service and nothing about what Peloton does specifically there is proprietary. Apple can simply work harder at copying the Peloton style and hire away some talent if that's the key?
On the hardware front - Peloton's are just "ok".
If Apple really wanted to make exercise hardware, I promise you they'd blow away the Peloton fit/finish and design.
That's mostly a matter of will. I'm fairly certain Apple could design around any specific integration/style patents if they wanted to.
(I don't think Apple wants to even come close to touching fitness hardware. Talk about a bag of hurt...)
In the end, Apple is NOT interested in Peloton. Now Netflix, that might be a different story, especially with the recent rapid fall in Netflix stock value. Apple getting access to Netflix's gigantic streaming infrastructure will help the company grow Apple TV+.
Peloton also owns several companies themselves. Just in the past few years they've purchased:
- Aquido - is a developer of voice assistants powered by artificial intelligence that enhances voice commands on apps and devices.
- Atlas Wearables - a maker of fitness-focused smartwatches.
- Otari - makers of connected workout mats with built-in screens.
Even if they bought Peloton and simply shut it down, the IP alone would likely be highly valuable. We also don't know what their plans are in the fitness space. Maybe they want to open up Apple Fitness Centers across the US (unlikely) or they want to be a supplier of top-tier gym equipment that ties in with the Apple ecosystem (more likely). Either way this is a relatively new and untapped market they could potentially enter.
Or they could steer clear altogether.
The right price is the key but I don’t think it will boost their fitness plans.
How many Apple sport watches are soles versus Nike plus watches sold once we have an understanding of that that we have an understanding how difficult I will find selling specific exercise hardware to the consumer in her home which failed peloton after the pandemic in this current environment or even in a prosperous environment and more people are getting outside. Moreover in the US the climate is warmer for people that want to stay fit so they tend to be outside more often than us in Canada where we face falls winters and springs. The target market for such devices I don’t think it’s in the US that stands for so long.
Case in point so the flex bow flex probably the most successful home exercise product on the market ever and I mean ever going back since 1990 there’s a slew of others that have come and go even some like bodybuilder famous Labrada that also failed.
This would never make it through the regulatory review. Apple is not looking for this sort of fight, IMO.
I'd almost agree, but Apple will likely sell streaming rights to many programs back to the original right holders.