Usually, Apple making a grand entrance to an entrenched market would spell doom for the players there, but when it comes to Apple’s latest digital workout service, it doesn’t look like investors are worried about Fitness+ killing the momentum.
Part of that may be that expectations were already priced-in to these stocks. The fitness play had been rumored by a report in Bloomberg last month, but few details were public of the service which was announced today and appears to echo offerings from Peloton and Fitbit, but fully leverage Apple’s Watch hardware.
Apple launches fitness subscription service for just under $80 a year
Peloton was already having a great day, currently up more than 5%, though it took a brief hit during Apple’s Fitness+ presentation before rebounding. The stock is currently up a staggering 191% in 2020.
Fitbit’s share price was relatively unchanged in intra-day trading. The company launched a Fitbit Premium service last month, but its stock is flat from the beginning of the year.
Things didn’t look much different for the more entrenched fitness companies. Weight Watchers International, which has seen its share price nearly halved since the beginning of the year, was down less than 1% by time of publication, and Planet Fitness, which has had a rough year but is showing signs of recovery, was up nearly 5% at the time of writing.
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Why so little movement across the board? Well, Apple is pressing forward on entering a number of digital markets in its services business at the moment, and that spread can mean less focus on dominating an industry. With its Apple One subscription bundling fitness on the higher-end tier, there’s always the danger that consumers won’t leave another subscription to join Apple, but already belonging to the Apple One will prevent them from looking at rival fitness services.
Underestimating Apple is never a wise proposition, but the company is in an unprecedented position as it looks to kickstart several digital services and, out-of-the-gate at least, they haven’t all been slam dunks.
