Peloton Price Cut May Signal Changing Times

The popularity of Peloton exercise bikes boomed during the early days of the pandemic, but it looks like things have cooled down considerably. Whether the waning interest is specific to the company or a sign that the shift from gyms to at-home workouts is waning as well remains too early to tell. Some new stats:

• Price cut: The company cut the price of its basic bike in hefty fashion from $1,895 to $1,495, though its higher-priced model is staying put at $2,495, reports the Wall Street Journal.
• Telling stat: For the first time since the pandemic began, the number of new subscribers grew at a slower pace in the second quarter, notes Axios. The total reached 2.3 million at the end of June, up from 2.1 million in March and 1.1 million from the previous year.

• Outlook: Peloton predicted slower subscriber growth and revenue in the future. It forecast sales of $800 million for the quarter ending in September, down from $937 million in the June quarter. In the latest quarter, the company got hit by a recall of its treadmill over safety issues, though a lower-cost model, the Tread, is expect to roll out next week. CNBC notes that the company is starting to shift back to treadmills over bikes, and treadmills are less profitable.
• Behavior shift? Though the coronavirus is raging across the US, people are returning to physical gyms. Planet Fitness, for example, says it has recovered 75% of the members it lost over the pandemic and reopened 98% of its gyms, per Yahoo Finance.

(More Peloton stories.)