Just hours after Snap(chat), or rather its shareholders, were gravely injured when the stock tumbled below its IPO price, one of the company’s IPO underwriters Morgan Stanley decided to add some insult, when its analyst Brian Nowak downgraded the social network, or photo app, or whatever it is these days, to equal-weight, cutting its price target to $16 from $28 on ad product and competition concerns. Shares promptly tumbled another 2.7% to $16.50 in pre-market trading on the downgrade .
According to the MS analyst, the company’s ad products are taking longer to improve and evolve than previously expected, noting “our latest industry conversations indicate many advertisers are struggling to develop SNAP ad units with sufficient completion rates and consistent return on investment.” He also cited increasing competition from Instagram, which appears to be giving advisers sponsored lenses for free, according to checks. Nowak calls this troubling as he estimates sponsored lenses and similar products accounting for ~50% of SNAP’s ad revenue.
MS alslo listed 4 larger than expected challenges:
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jul 11, 2017.
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