Peloton pivots to wellness alongside another layoff

The Verge

3 days ago

Peloton has pivoted many times over the past few years in its quest to return to profitability. The latest, as announced in its Q4 2025 earnings call, is leaning into health and wellness instead of 'just' cardio fitness.
'With each passing year, we are coming to understand better the importance of strength, stress management, sleep, and nutrition to living our best lives,' CEO Peter Stern said during the call. 'This creates the opportunity, no more than that, the mandate, for Peloton to evolve from being a cardio fitness partner to becoming the world's most trusted wellness partner across the full array of behaviors that maximize health demand.'
He went on the explain that the company will focus on 'health span', or the period of life a person lives in good health. 'Advances in medical science contributed to the prolonging of life here in the US by a remarkable 40 years from 1900 to 2020,' Stern says. 'However, as life span has increased, health span, the quality as opposed to quantity, of those years has failed to keep up. People are living longer but they're also living sicker in the U.S.'
Health span isn't a new concept. Whoop also just released a Health Span feature with its latest tracker earlier this summer. Peloton's take on improving wellness will reportedly involve investing more in its personalized training programs, the standalone Strength Plus app, as well as meditation and sleep features. Stern also said that Peloton would test and iterate on bringing nutritional content to its platform. In a shareholder letter, Stern highlighted using AI and integrating with health tracking devices as a means to provide 'increasingly personal insights, plans, and recommendations' to its members.
On the business side, Peloton exceeded investor expectations in all metrics. It posted $607 million in revenue, roughly $21 million above the top end of its expected guidance range. Connected paid fitness subscriptions and paid app subscriptions also exceeded targets, posting 2.8 million and 552,000, respectively. Peloton shares rose roughly 11 percent on the news, but Stern noted that the company's operating expenses were still too high.
As a result, Stern says the company will undergo another cost restructuring plan that includes laying off about six percent of its workforce. 'This is not a decision we came to lightly, as it impacts many talented team members, but we believe it is necessary for the long-term health of our business,' Stern writes in the shareholder letter. This marks the company's sixth round of layoffs, coming a little over a year after the company laid off 15 percent of its workforce and former CEO Barry McCarthy stepped down.
Peloton also plans to adjust pricing. That includes a new assembly fee for its hardware, which was previously free with purchase. (There will still be a free option for self-assembly.) The company also plans to introduce a new Special Pricing program to make its products more affordable for teachers, military personnel, first responders, and medical professionals.
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