March 2021: Peloton warns parents to keep children away from its Tread+ treadmills after a six year old child is killed after being pulled underneath one of them
May 2021: Peloton recalls the running machines after reports of at least 72 other injuries emerge. Class action lawsuits against the company are filed
June 2021: Firm is accused of greed after disabling ‘Just Run’ feature on Tread+ which lets users run for free, instead forcing them to pay a $39 fee. Brought the free option back after an outcry
August 2021: Peloton slashes cost of its entry-level bike by $400 as revenue growth slows
November 2021: Peloton reports sales of its products fell by 17 percent for the most recent quarter, with the smallest gain in subscribers since going public in September 2019. That saw Peloton’s market cap tumble by $8 billion, and John Foley lose his billionaire status
December 2021: Mr Big – played by Chris Noth – dies of a heart attack after using a Peloton in the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That. Shares continue to drop. Days later, Peloton is hailed for producing an advert featuring the revived character joking about the exercise bike. But it is forced to pull the hailed commercial after Noth is hit by multiple claims of sexual assault, which he denies
Firm hit by fresh scandal after John Foley hosts lavish Christmas party for select employees, after annual bash was scrapped for rank-and-file staff
Chris Noth, who plays Mr Big in Sex and the City, dies from a heart attack after using his Peloton
January 2022: Leaked audio reveals plans to fire 41% of sales and marketing teams. Stock price tumbles further after it emerged production of bikes and treadmills would be slowed due to sinking demand.
Calls for Foley to be fired emerge.
The PR gets even worse as another TV character is almost killed off from a heart attack after a Peloton session. Showtime’s popular series Billions used the bikes to give Mike Wagner, played by David Costabile, a scare in the season six premiere. He survives, and declared he is not going to die ‘like Mr Big’
Mike Wagner, played by David Costabile, is seen in the Season 6 premiere of Showtime’s Billions having a heart attack after riding a Peloton bike
February 2022: Executives at Peloton alleged to have hatched a plan to conceal rust and corrosion on their high-end bikes with a chemical solution.
When staff noticed that paint was flaking off some of the machines last year the company allegedly began using a chemical solution that disguised corrosion on the bikes by ‘reacting with the rust to form a black layer’, according to the Financial Times.
May 2022: Peloton’s stocks plummet nearly 90 percent over the past year, as company executives revealed that it lost a staggering $750 million in the previous quarter due to unsold inventory and mounting costs.
The company lost $757.1 million for the three months of 2022, amounting to about $2.27 per share. And when stripping out nonrecurring items from the equation, a survey by Zacks Investment Research, it lost 98 cents per share – outpacing projections of a per-share loss of 85 cents.
August 2022: Company announces it is slashing 784 jobs, increasing equipment prices, closing retail locations, and requiring employees to return to the office by November, as they try to secure their bottom line.
Peloton reports a huge $1.2 billion loss, its sixth consecutive quarter of reported losses, sending shares tumbling 15 percent.
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