Shares in Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc, have reached the lowest point since the company was publicly listed on 2 March. The all-time low of $20.50 is due to investor concerns about slowing user growth and a lack of profit. The company’s stock has mostly fallen since the Initial Public Offering of $24.48.
Snap Inc generates most of its profit through advertising. However, a report from eMarketer reduced Snap’s projected ad revenue from $800 million to $770 million. This reduction was due to higher revenue sharing with publishing partners, such as Buzzfeed and The Economist. These publishing partners produce original content daily in exchange for a share of the revenue made from advertisements placed with their content.
Snap disclosed in its IPO paperwork that it paid these partners $58 million in 2016, which represents a significant chunk of their ad revenue. Despite this substantial cut of revenue, advertisers are noticeably less interested in investing in Snapchat than they are in Instagram.
The eMarketer prediction of $770 million represents a 158% increase in Snap’s ad revenue, which is still substantial. However, the research company noted that Snapchat’s ad business is comprised entirely of mobile display and is quite small. In comparison to Facebook and Google, which are expected to control 25% and 32% of the mobile ad market respectively, Snap is predicted to hold 1.3%.
Yet Snap is still predicted to fare better than Twitter, which is expected to lose 4.7% of its US ad revenue this year due to stagnating user growth.
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