Peloton Interactive Inc. rallied as much as 6.8% on Tuesday after announcing plans to cease in-house manufacturing and rely solely on partners for production, marking one of the most dramatic steps yet to simplify its operations and reduce costs, Bloomberg News reported. The move is an about-face from Peloton’s strategy over the past three years, when it split manufacturing between its own facilities and partners. The company built a portion of its standard Bike models and the higher-end Bike+ using facilities it acquired in 2019 as part of buying Tonic Fitness Technology. It also relied on Taiwan-based manufacturing partner Rexon Industrial Corp. to build bikes and its Tread treadmill. Now, the company will cease operating its Tonic facilities and move all of its bike and treadmill manufacturing to Rexon, Chief Supply Chain Officer Andrew Rendich told Bloomberg News in an interview. “We are going back to nothing but partnered manufacturing,” he said. “It allows us to ramp up and ramp down based on capacity and demand.” Peloton is making the change after several months of turmoil. In February, co-founder John Foley was replaced as chief executive officer by veteran media executive Barry McCarthy, and the company cut nearly 3,000 employees — including many members of its executive team. Rendich was appointed to his role in March.
