William Gallagher
Fitness firm Peloton sees COVID sales boom end, blames Apple's iOS 14 App Tracking Transparency privacy feature for hurting sales.
Despite moves to increase sales, such as lowering the price of its smart bike, Peloton has announced a drop in its annual revenue forecast of almost $1 billion.
According to Bloomberg, the fitness company now says that it now expects sales of $4.4 billion to $4.8 billion in its financial year up to June 2022. Previously, it had predicted $5.4 billion.
During its mandated earnings call, CEO and co-founder John Foley addressed the issue of changed predictions, saying that the "swift" change was "not lost on us." Foley said that future performance was proving harder to predict than anticipated.
Reportedly, part of the issue was that demand for fitness products has dropped post pandemic, since buyers have been returning to their offices and gyms. Peloton also says that supply constraints, plus rising freight costs, were factors.
However, Peloton also blamed Apple's ad-related privacy changes. The company says that the moves made it more difficult to target buyers.
"We anticipated fiscal 2022 would be a very challenging year to forecast," Peloton management said in a letter to shareholders, seen by Bloomberg. "We will be taking concrete steps to reexamine our expense base and adjust our operating costs."
Peloton has also said that it will be introducing new products. There's no indication yet whether they will add full Apple GymKit integration.
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16 Comments
Now I guess Apple is a monopoly in the Fitness business, at least for iOS, just as it is a monopoly in the Gaming business for iOS. So the courts may need to force Apple to include external links to other Fitness companies in its own Fitness app.
Or maybe people can actually go back to gyms and want to get outta the damn house. You need a reason for the drop is estimate income and apple is a great target right now.
Oh please.
So Apple is responsible for:
1) COVID vaccines which made it possible for gyms to reopen and people to actually workout where they used to.
2) For Peloton charging and insane amount for an indoor exercise bike and then another insane MONTHLY charge to actually use the damn thing to it's potential.
From way before the pandemic, when I first saw a Peloton store and looked at their bike and the charges, I only thought about how expensive their system is. Nothing more. Peloton's problems have nothing to do with the new privacy features of the Apple ecosystem.
I didn't hear the call, but I doubt there's anyone left on Earth who doesn't already know what a Peloton bike is. Seems unlikely someone was left out because they couldn't track that person from a gym equipment site.