★ Snap Inc Reports More Slow User Growth, Growing Losses, Minimal Spectacles Sales (May 10, 2017)
Snap, owner of the Snapchat app, today reported its first earnings as a public company, and it was a somewhat unique experience. Its press release, linked below, is entirely devoid of commentary, and although its call had a little more of that in prepared remarks, it was mostly focused on its evolving ad products. The results themselves are more of the same from the S-1 filing, which I suggested at the time was lousy preparation for an IPO because it featured significantly slowing user growth and a lack of clarity about the future. This first quarter of public earnings reinforces that perception, with more slower growth than last year. Massive stock-based compensation related to the IPO dramatically distorts the margin picture, but even stripping out SBC leaves a worsening margin picture as costs in several categories rose faster than revenue. Evan Spiegel and the other executives on the call seemed keener to talk trash about competitors, notably Facebook, than in really answering investors’ pressing questions about user growth, and that’s reflected in the stock price, which has dived since the release. The bombastic tone would have been justifiable if the company’s growth hadn’t slowed significantly since the introduction of Instagram Stories with no signs of recovery, but in the current context it feels like naivety or denial instead. Snap’s management argues that measures of engagement and “creation” are more important than user growth metrics. However, it provides very few of those, and then not consistently or with enough granularity to measure them over time. The conclusion from all of this is that Snap’s future is that of a niche company dominating narrow segments of the population rather than a company with broad mass market appeal, and that has significant implications for its valuation. Two other points worth making: the company provided enough data in today’s call to suggest it sold fewer than 100k Spectacles units since launch, confirming the perception that it’s been seen as an experiment than a meaningful new part of its business. Secondly, it continues to suggest that its sub-par Android app has hurt growth, and that recent improvements have moved the needle, though the numbers in question have moved so little that this isn’t going to turn around the growth trend.
via Snap Inc.
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