Quarter numbers
Peloton cuts annual targets – share crashes after hours
Peloton is revising its annual targets downwards. Photo: Mark Lennihan / AP / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The fitness equipment specialist Peloton actually benefited from the corona pandemic, but that is now over.
At the fitness equipment specialist Peloton, the corona boom is finally over.
The company cut its sales forecast for the current fiscal year after the US stock market closed drastically. Peloton now only expects revenues between 4.4 billion and 4.8 billion dollars – three months ago the company had assumed 5.4 billion. Investors reacted in shock and let the stock plummet by more than 25 percent in the after-hours.
Peloton was one of the great success stories in Corona year 2020. While gyms stayed closed, many bought the multi-thousand dollar networked exercise bikes. Even a recall campaign for the peloton treadmills seemed to have quickly digested the company.
But with the lifting of the corona restrictions, business is more difficult. Peloton also significantly lowered the forecast of the number of subscribers. At the end of the current financial year in mid-2022, the company now expects 3.35 to 3.45 million subscription customers – instead of the previous expectation of up to 3.63 million.
In the second fiscal quarter, which ended in late September, sales rose six percent year-on-year to $ 805.2 million. The bottom line is that Peloton made a loss of $ 376 million from a loss of $ 69.3 million a year earlier.
Among other things, higher logistics costs weigh on the result. Peloton also lowered the price of the original model of its training bike in August – and customers then increasingly preferred it to the more expensive and lucrative new device. Before the price cut, the two models would have sold about equally well. After Peloton cut $ 400 from the price of the older model, it now accounts for three-quarters of bike sales, according to a conference call with analysts.