Anyone wanting to invest in the company that owns Snapchat now has an opportunity to do something that early investors were unable to do: buy shares for less than they cost on the first day of trading.
After tumbling 12 percent Monday, shares of Snap Inc. fell another 10 percent Tuesday, closing at $21.44.
Snap priced its initial public offering of 200 million shares at $17 each. The shares opened at $24 apiece Thursday and jumped 44 percent on their first trading day.
Industry analysts grew leery of slowing user growth numbers last year and everyone is now trying to figure out the value of a young company that is quickly catching up to Twitter in the number of people who use it.
The IPO of the Los Angeles company was the most anticipated arrival since Twitter Inc. entered the public market in 2013.
In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Snap said that it had 158 million daily users in its fourth quarter, up 48 percent from the prior-year period. But Wall Street has become skittish about future growth.
Whereas user growth expanded in each consecutive quarter of 2015, that expansion began to slip in each consecutive quarter of 2016, hitting just 5 million new users in the final quarter of the year.
That was half the user growth in the final quarter of 2015.
Snap blamed the slowing growth late in the year on technical issues, saying the launch of several products and release of multiple updates hurt the performance of its Snapchat app.
It's been a mixed bag for social media. Where Facebook has soared, Twitter has struggled to find its way.
Mark Zuckerberg's company debuted on Wall Street in 2012. It has continued to enhance its social network and its ad revenue and user base has grown fast. Twitter, since its 2013 IPO, has experienced stalling revenue growth and the company, after the return of co-founder Jack Dorsey, has been forced to cut costs and shuffle leadership.
Twitter is now valued at $11 billion, while Facebook is valued at $395 billion.
Snap, upon its IPO, became more valuable the stalwarts like American Airlines, Macy's and Xerox.
SMPTE elects board officers, regional governors
SMPTE®,the home of media professionals, technologists, and engineers, has revealed the board officers and regional governors who will serve terms beginning in January 2025.
Three new officers--Richard Welsh as SMPTE president, Eric Gsell as SMPTE executive VP, and Polly Hickling as SMPTE Education VP--have been elected for a two-year term from Jan. 1, 2025, to Dec. 31, 2026. One SMPTE officer, Lisa Hobbs, will be continuing her service as SMPTE secretary and treasurer for another two-year term. Additionally, Raymond Yeung will be stepping into the role of standards VP on Jan. 1, 2025.
“SMPTE’s membership has spoken,” said SMPTE interim executive director Sally-Ann D’Amato. “These officers have been tasked with an important responsibility, one each of them is prepared to tackle head-on. These next two years are looking bright for SMPTE!”
In addition to the officers, 10 regional governors were elected by the Society to serve two-year 2025-2026 terms.
These include the following regional governors, re-elected to continue their service:
Asia-Pacific Region Governor
Tony Ngai, Society of Motion Imaging Ltd.
EMEA - Central & South America Region Governor
Fernando Bittencourt, FB Consultant
United Kingdom Region Governor
Chris Johns, Sky UK.
USA - Central Region Governor
William T. Hayes, Consultant
USA - Eastern Region Governor
Dover Jeanne Mundt, Riedel Communications
USA - Western Region Governor
Jeffrey F. Way, Open Drives
Also elected were four newcomers to the SMPTE Board:
Canada Region Governor
Jonathan Jobin, Grass Valley
USA - Hollywood Region Governor
Allan Schollnick, Voxx... Read More