Apple's acquisition history shows why a Peloton buy is out of the question
Peloton might be for sale. (Or, maybe not quite yet, if you think the new CEO will have enough time to right the ship.)
On Friday, news broke in The Wall Street Journal that Amazon was taking a look at Peloton. Later, it came out that Nike was too. And then we got a repeat of the same M&A fanfiction that's been going on since before Peloton went public: What about Apple?
Some of the best Apple-watchers thought it was likely to be a serious discussion within Apple. Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, wrote Sunday night Apple could buy Peloton as a defensive move against a Big Tech rival like Amazon grabbing it first. He called the potential acquisition a “strategic fit.”
Many others have thought the same for years now, and Apple is right back in the conversation now that we know a Peloton sale is more likely now than it has ever been.
But there are far more reasons Apple will decide to take a hard pass on Peloton, if its history has been any guide.
Apple rarely makes large acquisitions. Peloton's market cap was a bit more than $12 billion by Tuesday afternoon. Apple has never even come close to buying a company that large. Its largest acquisition to date was Beats for $3 billion.
Besides that, just about every other acquisition has been too small for Apple to meet the requirements to report them. We usually only find out about an Apple acquisition after someone in the press reports on it.
Apple tends to buy companies for their technology and staff. These are called “acquihires,” which is when a larger company buys a smaller one and integrates their employees and technology into new or existing products. For example, your iPhone's weather app got a big update last year because Apple acquihired a company that made a weather app called Dark Sky.
Apple is obsessed with making its own hardware and software, and keeping high profit margins. Peloton makes giant Android tablets with clunky software, connected to exercise gear. Plus, Peloton continues to lose money and its margins would put a drag on Apple's own margins if the two companies merged.
Pelton's fourth-quarter earnings report from Tuesday morning paints a dismal picture for the company's 2022. The company reported disappointing subscriber numbers, canceled plans to build a $400 million factory in Ohio and fired 2,800 employees. It's hard to imagine what Apple would find appealing in that report.
Apple doesn't need Peloton's subscribers. Peloton has 6.6 million subscribers, a relatively tiny number compared to the 785 million paid subscribers Apple says it has through App Store apps. Plus, some of those Apple subscribers include Peloton customers who signed up through the App Store, meaning Apple already gets a cut of some of Peloton's subscription revenue today.
But wait! Couldn't Apple surprise us like it did when it bought Beats? Sure, if you want to compare stationary bikes to LeBron's favorite headphones.
Apple bought Beats primarily for its streaming music service, which it transformed into Apple Music a year after the companies merged. On top of that, Beats had a profitable headphones business that could be improved with Apple's technology. (Just look at today's Beats headphones, which are full of the same slick tech you find in AirPods.)
Apple needed the streaming music service Beats already had in place in order to get a jump on the market leader Spotify. Keep in mind, this was eight years ago, early in Apple's transition to growing its digital services business. Streaming music was a natural place to start.
In Peloton's case, Apple doesn't need a streaming fitness service (it already has one), and it doesn't seem likely to start making treadmills or stationary bikes that lose money.
Instead, growth in Apple's fitness business will come from where it always has: Apple Watch sales (which continue to grow) and compatibility with other fitness equipment, like at Equinox gyms, or classes, like at Orange Theory.
Peloton 可能正在出售。 （或者，如果你认为新任 CEO 将有足够的时间来纠正这艘船，也许还没有。） 周五，《华尔街日报》爆出消息称亚马逊正在关注 Peloton。后来发现耐克也是。然后我们又重演了自 Peloton 上市之前就一直在进行的并购同人小说：那苹果呢？
一些最优秀的苹果观察者认为这可能是苹果内部的一次严肃讨论。 Wedbush 的分析师丹·艾夫斯 (Dan Ives) 周日晚写道，苹果可以收购 Peloton，作为对抗亚马逊等大型科技竞争对手的防御举措。他称这次潜在的收购是“战略契合”。
多年来，许多其他人都这么认为，而苹果公司现在又回到了对话中，因为我们知道现在比以往任何时候都更有可能出售 Peloton。
但是，如果 Peloton 的历史可以作为指导的话，Apple 将决定对 Peloton 采取强硬态度的原因要多得多。
苹果很少进行大规模收购。截至周二下午，Peloton 的市值略高于 120 亿美元。苹果甚至从未接近收购这么大的公司。它迄今为止最大的一笔收购是 30 亿美元的 Beats。
除此之外，几乎所有其他收购都太小，以至于苹果无法满足报告它们的要求。我们通常只有在媒体报道了苹果收购之后才知道。
苹果倾向于为他们的技术和员工购买公司。这些被称为“收购”，即较大的公司购买较小的公司并将其员工和技术整合到新的或现有的产品中。例如，你的 iPhone 的天气应用程序去年有了重大更新，因为苹果收购了一家开发名为 Dark Sky 的天气应用程序的公司。
苹果痴迷于制造自己的硬件和软件，并保持高利润率。 Peloton 用笨重的软件制造巨大的安卓平板电脑，连接到运动装备。此外，如果两家公司合并，Peloton 继续亏损，其利润率将拖累苹果自身的利润率。
Pelton 周二上午发布的第四季度收益报告为该公司 2022 年描绘了一幅惨淡的画面。该公司报告的订户数量令人失望，取消了在俄亥俄州建造一座价值 4 亿美元的工厂的计划，并解雇了 2,800 名员工。很难想象苹果会在这份报告中发现什么吸引人的地方。
苹果不需要 Peloton 的订阅者。 Peloton 拥有 660 万订户，与苹果表示通过 App Store 应用程序拥有的 7.85 亿付费订户相比，这个数字相对较小。此外，其中一些 Apple 订户包括通过 App Store 注册的 Peloton 客户，这意味着 Apple 今天已经从 Peloton 的部分订阅收入中分得一杯羹。
可是等等！ Apple 就不能像收购 Beats 时那样让我们感到惊讶吗？当然，如果您想将固定自行车与勒布朗最喜欢的耳机进行比较。
苹果收购 Beats 主要是为了提供流媒体音乐服务，在两家公司合并一年后，它转变为 Apple Music。最重要的是，Beats 拥有一项有利可图的耳机业务，可以通过 Apple 的技术加以改进。 （看看今天的 Beats 耳机，它充满了你在 AirPods 中发现的相同技术。）
Apple 需要 Beats 已经拥有的流媒体音乐服务，以便在市场领导者 Spotify 上跃升。请记住，这是 8 年前的事了，当时是苹果公司向发展数字服务业务转型的初期。流媒体音乐是一个很自然的起点。
在 Peloton 的案例中，Apple 不需要流媒体健身服务（它已经有了），而且它似乎不太可能开始制造亏损的跑步机或固定自行车。
相反，Apple 健身业务的增长将来自它一直拥有的地方：Apple Watch 的销量（持续增长）以及与其他健身设备的兼容性，例如 Equinox 健身房或课程，例如 Orange Theory。
