Peloton, being one of the most talked about IPOs of the year, finally broke into the market last week and is showing a bit less upward momentum than predicted. Being called a phenomenon within the IPO market, Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON) is trying to be above the home-exercise businesses of the past and rise to a profitable future.
Most home workout programs of the past follow the same model: a new product is introduced that promises the ability to completely change a person's body in as little as an hour a day, hundreds of thousands of the product are sold and consumers are completely engrossed in the cult of the workout, the company make absurd amounts of money and plans to go public, and the cycle ends with the company pulling their IPO early or being introduced to the market and not earning the amounts of money they thought they would because of consumer interest fatigue.
When Peloton was advertised to be a new breakthrough in home workouts, but the company has left many investors doubtful of a strong future for the company. Previous cycling companies like SoulCycle, which was a bicycle class chain and failed home-workout company, had retracted their IPO before its release. Even successful IPOs like Fitbit (NYSE: FIT), the technology wear fitness tracker, held much attention towards their growth potential until their public market release where they could not surpass the competition from Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) and Samsung products.
Peloton is no different, offering higher-end bicycles starting at $2,245 and treadmills at $4,295, with much of its competition being sold at a fraction of the price. Peloton is not the first home exercise subscription, with membership being $39 per month to use the interactive software with the stationary equipment. Various streaming platforms offer home workout options and other companies offer off-brand products that are very close to Peloton. Peloton also offers a $19.49 per month subscription for users without the workout equipment and various accessaries like free weights and reusable water bottles. Peloton's only separation from other subscription based exercise companies is its user-base, which the company boasts to be over 500,000.
Peloton's president William Lynch said that the company had studied the fitness market's what he called "baggage" and concluded that all the past crazes failed because the products were pushing empty claims about the results the clients would gain. Peloton is different from other commercial bicycles and treadmills because the company is not necessarily a fitness equipment brand or streaming service, but an in-home fitness class experience.
Part of Peloton's subscription service is that the classes allow users to connect with one another, in the same way that clients would have the opportunity to connect to fellow class members in a real life setting. Peloton also has broadened their market beyond their stationary exercise equipment, making their service a name brand in fitness, not just in stationary bicycles.
Peloton launched their IPO on September 26, with an opening $2 dollars below their initial share price. The company was the third-worst IPO debut of the past decade by any U.S.-listed firm that raised at least $1 billion in its offering.
In the comment on the first day of trading, the company's Chief Financial Officer Jill Woodworth stated that she wished that "the stock traded better on the first day, but we're in it for the long haul and are excited for capital to continue to grow our business." Peloton plans for international growth, with the company moving forward to launch in Germany, and has future goals of releasing new products and software.
It seems that Peloton is trying to emerge as a company comparable to Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), where users subscribe to exercise content in order to work in fitness to their busy lives and connect with other classmates. Peloton joins what Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is calling the end of an era for "unicorn" IPOs, or unprofitable companies that raise an offering amount of over $100 million. These companies sell investors the future of profits instead of actual foundational profits, thus usually flop in their IPO release, or, like the WeCompany, pull their IPO all together.
Though Peloton is striving to be something nuanced in the home-fitness market, only time will tell how the company stands against the competition toward its goal of profitability.