FLASHBACK: Snap Shares Down -30% Since Our Best Ideas Short Call

08/11/17 12:20PM EDT

FLASHBACK: Snap Shares Down -30% Since Our Best Ideas Short Call - snapchat image

Shares of Snap (SNAP) are down -50% since the social media company's IPO in March. The stock is getting hammered today (down -11%) after missing Wall Street analyst expectations, reporting even steeper losses and fewer daily active users than analysts predicted.

Hedgeye's Internet & Media Sector Head Hesham Shaaban hosted a deep dive institutional call to add SNAP to his Best Ideas List as a SHORT on Friday June 16. Since then shares are down almost -30%.

Here's what Shaaban wrote in that call invite...

The Team will discuss both the near-term and long-term outlook of SNAP. The discussion will also run through the various headwinds that we expect to hinder SNAP's DAU and revenue growth prospects, and discuss how we expect the story to play out over the course of the year and into 2018. 

KEY DISCUSSION POINTS:

  • USER GROWTH: We estimate that SNAP has already captured the lion's share of the low-hanging fruit in both North America & Europe.  Incremental penetration will be tougher to come by given both structural hurdles internationally and a remaining TAM that is decidedly older; much of which FB has already penetrated.  SNAP still has some runway, but growth will come at a much slower/lumpier pace.
  • MONETIZATION:The limitations of SNAP's user growth trajectory also means the longer-term revenue story is in question, especially since the monetization gap between SNAP and FB isn't as nearly wide as the ARPU metrics suggest, which also means profitability isn't a guarantee. While SNAP has real runway for near-term revenue growth, consensus is overshooting that part of the story.
  • POSITION:The 1Q print confirmed much of our early thoughts on SNAP, but more importantly gave us more clarity around the trajectory of the story and timing of our catalysts, which we detail during the call.   

And here's some more intel from Shaaban in a more recent note:

"Regarding Snap’s (SNAP) longer-term prospects, we estimate that the company has already captured the lion's share of the low-hanging fruit in terms of NA/EU DAUs, and there are structural headwinds (both internal & external) to broader adoption, especially on a daily basis.  That also means it's longer term revenue prospects are in question since the highly-touted monetization delta b/w SNAP and FB isn't nearly as wide as the ARPU metrics suggest."
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