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Snapchat Files For a $3 Billion IPO (theverge.com)
Snapchat has filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange today, picking the ticker symbol "SNAP." The company hopes to raise $3 billion and says it has 158 million daily active users. The IPO would reportedly value the company above $20 billion. The Verge reports: The filing comes at an exciting but challenging time for Snap. The company -- originally named Snapchat -- has declared its intentions to become -- a camera company -- rather than just an app developer. And it's already found some success with Spectacles, its fun pair of video-recording sunglasses. The company says its advertising business is growing quickly. It reported $58.7 million in revenue for 2015, and grew that to $404.5 million in 2016. Along with that strong revenue growth, however, its losses also swelled. Snapchat lost $372.9 million in 2015 and $514.6 million this past year, more than its total revenue. Twitter was also struggling to generate a profit when it went public, while Facebook was not. Here's a gem from the S-1 filing. "We have incurred operating losses in the past, expect to incur operating losses in the future, and may never achieve or maintain profitability." Sounds like a great investment!
the bubble hasn't burst yet.
but eyeballs and cash burn rate is all that matter
I'm just curious what percentage of the costs are server/bandwidth/storage and what percentage are marketing and what percentage are development. Do the filings tell us?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Original punctuation style. Shit and wrong, but original.
At the bottom of the
"We have incurred operating losses in the past, expect to incur operating losses in the future, and may never achieve or maintain profitability."
Has the ENTIRE concept of profitability gone out the fucking window when it comes to running a company? I don't even know what we legally define as a scam anymore when companies that project running in the red forever file for IPOs.
Not even in the era of the dot-bomb were vaporware pimps arrogant enough to blatantly admit the proposed company would be a failure from a financial standpoint. In fact, stupidity has reached a level where investors have apparently forgotten why we refer to it as the dot bomb. It's as if the S-1 filing statement is some kind of troll test.
Sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before?
Exodus Communication circa 2000*: "It is possible that we may never achieve profitability on a quarterly or an annual basis."
Exodus Communications history:
* See https://www.sec.gov/Archives/e...
Janie took my gun...
Ok so the Stock started at $178.42.
The Stock Ended the day at: $169.90 (Low of $133.00)
The Snap IPO filing also discloses a lot of elements of the Snapchat company that may scare investors off, or at least they should.
For one thing, there's the shareholder-unfriendly corporate governance structure that gives 26-year-old CEO Evan Spiegel near absolute control,
or the fact that Snap says it doesn't have any intention of paying cash dividends, possibly ever.
or how absurdly expensive it will be, Snapchat has reportedly been seeking a $25 billion valuation.
Snapchat's parent company is asking for a valuation of nearly 62 times its revenue. (Snap lost $515 million last year, or 38% more than it lost in 2015. )
Snap warns in its IPO filing that its expenses are also increasing rapidly, and could outpace revenue growth for a long time. The number of Snapchat employees for one, more than tripled to 1,859 in 2016.
Investors are betting on a future dream of earnings that is still so far away, it may disappear before that day ever comes.
So where is the growth?
Snap's sales are growing fastest in other parts of the world besides the U.S. and Europe, increasing 53% in the fourth quarter year over year there, but only 39% in North America. Still, the U.S. and North America account for about 90% of Snap's overall revenue.
Probably best to wait a bit on this to see what happens.
In all fairness you should note that sentence is really just legal CYA on their part. Obviously they intend to achieve and maintain profitability.
I see that you do not understand Wall Street what so ever. Here let me explain it for you, they sell the product, they do not keep the product, they take a percentage from the sale. Need I remind of the too big to fail banks and them selling crap assets to their customers telling them how great they were and making ever more money by betting those assets would lose value.
It is not what the dot.bomb is worth, it is how much you make selling it.
The mind boggles as to what a new digital company that actually generates a profit would be worth, 1.5 planet earths perhaps.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
This is categorically incorrect.
First, all that "social" has to run somehow....and it is people with "skills" that do the "relevant" programming.
The idea that what people call "social" is somehow supplanting the need for software devs and coders is actually ridiculous. All that "social" is coded and hosted and maintained by software devs and coders!
2nd, the whole contextualization of text and pictures sent over the internet to a logged-in user is this new thing in human experience called "social" is absolutely incorrect. Snapchat, facebook, twitter, etc...it's all just text and images.
What you and idiot marketing buzzword people call "social" is inherent human behavior. Things like facebook, snapchat, etc are simply mediators when humans choose to do it using internet.
Post cards are just as much "social" as snapchat.
this makes me think you are being sarcastic...honestly...
the coding skill to make every function a one-liner isn't all that is necessary to make a successful app...no one ever said it was!
good coding skills are certainly useful, but just like good concrete laying or whatever skill, you either work for a company or for yourself...if you work for yourself you have to have skills, like business skills, other than the skill you are marketing...**it's the same for all skills not just code**
Thank you Dave Raggett