Every year, Deepwater Asset Management, a large investment company from Minneapolis, releases its annual predictions for the coming year, and this year, the firm has predicted Apple will acquire Peloton in 2024.
The investment firm's website wrote, “Apple will look to bolster their workout segment in 2024 by adding fitness equipment to compliment the Watch and fitness tracking software. Peloton has a loyal subscriber base of about 3 million users that will add about $1.7B to Apple’s subscription revenue, additionally this fits well into Apple’s continued investment in health and wellness.”
Among the 13 Deepwater predictions for 2024, the company also expects Apple not to announce any other products in the Vision Pro product line. “It has been reported Apple is already working on a cheaper ($1,500), less advanced version of the soon to be released Vision Pro headset. We believe Vision Pro needs time to gain traction with developers in the market before a lesser model is released. We expect Apple will sell between 400k-500k Vision Pro’s in 2024.”
Not the first time
While the prediction of no further Vision Pro models this year beyond the expected January release of Apple’s first AR headset is a pretty safe bet, the Peloton acquisition prediction is somewhat out of the blue. This wouldn’t be the first time Apple has been linked to the fitness peripheral company, with comments from business analysts in 2022 hinting that many of the world’s biggest tech companies would be interested in purchasing the company that has seen a tumultuous time following 2020 when working out from home was the only option. Since the pandemic, however, Peloton has seen its shares fall by 23% in 2023 and now sits 96% lower than in 2021.
As noted by reputable Apple analyst Neil Cybart back in 2021, “Peloton is unable to compete with Apple on price. Apple Fitness Plus is basically free when thinking of the Apple One bundle. That makes Peloton's $13/month digital classes a hard sell. Peloton won't be able to compete with Apple's wearables strategy either.” That said, would Apple even want to move into the world of fitness peripherals?
As a Peloton subscriber, my $2000 Peloton Bike+ costs me an additional $44 a month to use the platform across all my devices. Compared to a gym membership, there’s an argument that it’s great value for money, but how would Apple make a difference to a brand that is so synonymous with staying at home when people want to get out of their houses as much as possible again?
Last year, Deepwater was successful with 8 of 10 of its predictions so there’s definitely a track record there to hint that a Peloton Apple Fitness Plus crossover could happen sooner rather than later.
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