Snap has been on a wild ride as a public company.
The first few years after its 2017 public debut, the company was mired in declining user growth due in part to the most egregious rip-off in recent corporate history: IG Stories.
This was followed by Snap’s short-lived Spectacles experiment.
Things got real weird in mid-2018: amid dismal stock performance, the company held a shareholder meeting that lasted 166 seconds (LOL).
Initially, advertisers cut spending, dimming the outlook for social media companies. But more time at home has meant more time for devices and — with big advertisers leaving Facebook — Snap was primed to benefit.
And it did.
Last Tuesday, Snap reported +52% YoY revenue growth, with a +18% YoY uptick in daily active users to ~250m.
$SNAP rose 50%+ last week on the news and the company — which was worth less than $7B in late 2018 — sports a market cap of $64B.
Investor (and meme lord) Turner Novak’s review of the June 2020 Snap Partner Summit noted that Snap reaches 75% of the US population between ages 13-34, totaling 78m users — more than Instagram or Facebook.
Novak further highlighted Snap’s impressive engagement:
Despite the noise, CEO Evan Spiegel & Co. have been diligently working on these features for years and it clearly paid off.
Snap’s latest earnings suggest the beginning “of a recovery from brand advertisers,” per the company’s chief business officer.
This is great news for the smaller social networks: Pinterest (+20%) and Twitter (+10%) were both up last week on the Snap news.
What a ride.