Peloton Grows Subscriptions 137%, Hits 1.33 Million Users

Need to Know

• Peloton reported $757.9 million in revenue for its Q1 fiscal quarter, an increase of 232%.
• The home fitness company also saw a spike in subscriptions over the quarter: Fitness Subscriptions grew by 137% year-over-year, while digital subscriptions grew 382%.
• The increases came despite Peloton underperforming in product fulfillment and delivery over the period.

Analysis

Peloton outperformed expectations with its fiscal Q1 2021 earnings, with the company hitting $757.9 million in revenue over the period, marking a year-over-year increase of 232%.

The fitness company, which sells at-home bicycles and treadmills, also saw its subscription numbers skyrocket. Over its fiscal first quarter, Peloton saw its Fitness Subscriptions—which are subscriptions accessed via Peloton’s devices—increase by 137%, hitting 1.33 million users. Digital subscriptions, which allow users to access Peloton’s classes via their mobile device even if they don’t own a Peloton device, grew 382%, to 510,000 users.

According to Peloton CEO John Foley, user engagement was strong over the quarter: Fitness subscribers completed 20.7 workouts, compared to 11.7 over the same time period last year. There was a sequential quarterly decline in workouts, but Foley attributed this to “the typical seasonality tied to warmer weather in Q1.”

Peloton has had a number of successes this year, as home fitness increased in popularity due to the COVID_19 pandemic: the company hit its one-million-user mark just under two months ago, in September, and hosted its largest-ever online class in May, when 23,000 users joined a live workout together.

The company did hit some hurdles this quarter, as the company struggled to meet demand for its Bike+ device, and as a result underperformed on fulfillment and delivery goals. Foley chalked these delays up to the unexpected spike in demand that came during a spike in COVID-19 cases this fall.

“Wait times for our products have been unacceptably long, but none of us could have predicted that we’d see all-time spikes of COVID-19 cases in October and the threat of new lockdowns in our global markets,” he said, adding that the lowering of the price of the Bike+, which took place in September, also increased demand. “while we are incredibly excited about the positive reaction to the product,” he said, “sales outpaced our internal estimates quickly causing wait times for Bike+ to balloon.”

Peloton is part of a number of home-fitness companies who have seen significant growth in 2020, due largely to the pandemic. Fitness platform Mindbody, for instance, saw the number of its users who were using pre-recorded fitness videos increase to 70% this June, from 17% the year before. The company partnered with payments firm Stripe earlier this year to help reach new digital markets. Other companies have been expanding their home-fitness capabilities in response to the increase in demand, including Apple, which announced Apple Fitness+ in September, and Lululemon, which acquired home fitness device manufacturer Mirror in June.