Snap slides as pressure in the social media industry heats up (SNAP)

pulse

September 1, 2017 4:36 PM

Snap's stock price is falling after a month of gaining ground. The stock is still lower than its $17 IPO, but there might be a chance for it to go higher.

Snap's winning streak is a thing of the past.

Shares are trading down 2.69% at $14.15 on Friday, continuing their slide from Monday's high of $15.19.

Snap is officially out from the shadow of its lockup period, which gave company insiders the chance to sell their collective 1.2 billion shares for the first time since going public.

Now, all Snap has to contend with is incredibly strong competition from the likes of Facebook and Instagram. On Thursday, Instagram announced its "Stories" feature, which is a clone of a feature that appeared first on Snapchat, will now be viewable online as well as through the app.

The North American social media business is one of the most competitive right now, according to Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. He told Markets Insider that Facebook and Instagram have already won the war for social media, but Snap has a chance to carve out a smaller chunk of the market to live in.

Engagement on Snap remains high, especially among youngsters that are highly desirable to advertisers. New features, like the company's Snap Maps, have the chance to increase engagement even further, Mahaney said. If this happens, advertisers might start spending more in the app, increasing Snap's chances of survival.

The moves had seemed to be working, to a degree. Snap was up 29.42% from its low on August 11. It has since lost some of that gain and is now up only 11.49% over the past month.

Wall Street is not entirely convinced of the company's recovery. The two company updates issued by firms on Wednesday were both neutral and gave shares a price target of $12 and $15.

Mahaney is rather bullish compared to his peers and rates the company a buy with a price target of $20. He argues that other analysts are undervaluing the stock because they don't really understand that it's not interchangeable for other social media apps. Mahaney argued that Snap is used more for direct messaging, while Instagram and Facebook are used primarily for entertainment.

Snap is down about 16.76% since its March IPO at $17.

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