PELOTON Interactive launched a partnership with TikTok on Thursday (Jan 4) to create a fitness hub on the popular video app and tap into a new pool of potential customers.

The agreement marks the first time Peloton will produce custom social content for a partner outside of its own network, the company said in a statement on Thursday. The new co-branded hub, which will be available in the US, UK and Canada, will feature dedicated Peloton content, including select live classes – with and without equipment required – original instructor series and celebrity collaborations, available through the #TikTokFitness hashtag.

Peloton shares were up 7.2 per cent mid-morning in New York. They had declined 23 per cent in 2023 even as the broader tech industry gained.

Peloton, whose stationary bikes and streamed workout classes became a pandemic-era staple, has struggled as people returned to the gym and other activities. It long ago separated its streamed content, by instructors who have often become celebrities in their own right, from its trademark hardware in an effort to be accessible to more people.

The New York-based company last year launched a tiered membership pricing strategy for its app in an effort to engage new kinds of customers in fitness content, from strength and meditation to outdoor running.

TikTok, which started as a music video app and now has more than one billion active users globally, has thousands of communities dedicated to various fitness endeavours, from #runnersoftiktok to #thefitnessjourney, according to the statement.

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Owned by China’s ByteDance, TikTok has been trying to popularise more live-streamed videos in the US as it seeks to boost shopping through the app. Livestream commerce is huge in Asia, but porting that strategy to places like the UK and US has so far fallen flat, Bloomberg has reported.

Peloton chief executive officer Barry McCarthy is counting on deals with Lululemon Athletica and sports organisations to help bolster revenue, which he expects to pick up in the second half of the company’s fiscal year ending in June.

The deal with TikTok “could eventually boost its own subscriber base, but the path to sustainable profitability and free cash flow remains unclear,” Kevin Near, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a note following the announcement.

Financial details of the deal and content pricing weren’t disclosed. BLOOMBERG