Peloton Vows to Slash Costs in Weeks-Early Quarterly Report

In Business
2022-01-21 00:25:34Z
By Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Peloton Interactive Inc., contending with investor anxiety about slowing growth, vowed to cut costs at the fitness company and gave an early look at its quarterly results, which came in just short of analysts' estimates.

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"We are taking significant corrective actions to improve our profitability outlook and optimize our costs across the company," Chief Executive Officer John Foley said in a statement Thursday. "This includes gross margin improvements, moving to a more variable cost structure, and identifying reductions in our operating expenses as we build a more focused Peloton moving forward."

The remarks accompanied a preliminary report of $1.14 billion in sales during the fiscal second quarter, which ended on Dec. 31. Analysts had estimated $1.16 billion. The company ended the period with 2.77 million connected fitness subscribers, just below the 2.81 million prediction.

Foley said he would share more information on the cost-cutting plan when Peloton gives its formal earnings report on Feb. 8. "This work is still underway," he said.

The early earnings release follows a report from CNBC Thursday that the company is temporarily halting manufacturing of bikes and treadmills. Production of Peloton's main stationary bikes will be paused for two months, CNBC reported, citing internal documents. And the company will stop making its treadmill machine for six weeks, starting in February.

That news sent the shares down 24% to $24.22 in regular trading Thursday. Foley's remarks after the close boosted the stock somewhat, sending it up 2% as of 7:14 p.m. in New York.

Foley said on the last earnings call that the company would be working to identify ways to cut costs. Peloton had spent millions of dollars on building up supply of its products to fulfill pandemic-fueled demand, only for interest to sputter as economies began to reopen.

The company didn't provide updated fiscal full year guidance on Thursday. Peloton had said the previous quarter that it expects to generate revenue of $4.4 billion to $4.8 billion during fiscal 2022, which ends in June. That range was a reduction from earlier company projections of $5.4 billion.

When Peloton slashed its 2022 guidance in November, the shares suffered their biggest decline ever. The company also said that month that the second quarter was off to a "softer-than-anticipated start."

"We anticipated fiscal 2022 would be a very challenging year to forecast," management said in a letter to shareholders at the time. "We will be taking concrete steps to reexamine our expense base and adjust our operating costs."

(Updates with earlier statements starting in seventh paragraph.)