If you pick up a brick and throw it backward over your head, you’re likely to hit a Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) critic. The stock is not popular. And possibly for sound reasons. But it may also be underestimated at this point, particularly given some very real innovation going on at the company in recent weeks. As a case in point, the company recently announced the launch of Snap Originals and the debut of serialized Shows, including its first formal slate of scripted Shows and docuseries.
According to the release, “Building upon its successful vertical video content platform designed exclusively for mobile, Snap is moving mobile TV forward with series from some of the industry’s biggest names, including Bunim/Murray Productions, the Duplass Brothers’ DBP Donut and Brad Weston’s Makeready, as well as established film and television writers.”
Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) trumpets itself as a firm that operates as a camera company in the United States and internationally.
The company offers Snapchat, a camera application that helps people to communicate through short videos and images. It also provides Camera, a tool to personalize and add context to Snaps; Friends Page that allows to creating and watching stories, chatting with groups, making voice and video calls, and communicating through a range of contextual stickers and Bitmojis; and Discover that helps to surface the most interesting stories from publishers, creators, and the community, based on a user’s subscriptions and interests.
In addition, the company offers Snap Map, which enables individuals to pinch on the camera screen for bringing a live map of their location, as well as showing nearby friends, popular stories, and a heatmap of recent Snaps posted to their story; Memories that allows users to choose to save the Snaps they create in a searchable personal collection, and users to create Snaps and stories from their saved Snaps and camera roll; and Spectacles, a hardware product that connects with Snapchat and capture video from a human perspective.
In addition, the company has a strong balance sheet, with cash levels far exceeding current liabilities ($1.6B against $279.3M).
The company was formerly known as Snapchat, Inc. and changed its name to Snap Inc. in September 2016. Snap Inc. was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Venice, California.
Content is King
As we discussed earlier, SNAP just announced the launch of Snap Originals and the debut of serialized Shows, including its first formal slate of scripted Shows and docuseries.
This news, while obviously helpful, figures into a tape that has been defined by some heavy action, with shares of SNAP dealing with some pressure, but coming back on the news to close the last five days more or less flat.
Naturally, the market has provided a tough environment over the past week. So, closing that stretch basically even over the same period, and rallying following this release would suggest some underlying strength.
This is a stock that has been crushed over the past 3 months. The relative strength that has perhaps come into play over recent days could set the stage for a more sustained bounce in progress.
“Over the last two years, our highly engaged and loyal audience has helped to define what mobile content should look like — vertical, hyper-visual and paced in a way that draws you in quickly and makes you want to return,” said Nick Bell, Snap’s Vice President of Content. “We’re proud to be working with some of the industry’s most talented storytellers to bring new and innovative Shows to our community and are thankful to be extending our partnerships with NBCUniversal and Viacom to create even more content for Snapchatters worldwide.”
Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) pulled in sales of $262.3M in its last reported quarterly financials, representing top line growth of 44.4%.