Think this guy read my past posts about Snapchat, however he is still valuing it at a huge value compared to what I think it's worth which is no more than $10-$30 million.....wallstreet hype believes it's worth nearly $30 billion .... Snapchat is ‘total junk’, not worth $500 million and investors should avoid its IPO, an analyst has warned Arjun Kharpal | @ArjunKharpal Mon, 23 Jan '17 | 4:35 AM ET http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/23/snapchat-is-total-junk-and-investors-should-avoid-ipo-analyst.html
If owners of a company make more money from rising stock prices then from operational profits, it is time to get out quickly. Healthy companies have big, and fast growing operational profits.
Snapchat is an overvalued unicorn, no doubt. However a startup in a new field is focused on dominating that field, not growing big operational profits. Most of the dominant companies that were startups in the past 15 years spent many years with no profits as they consolidated their industry position, the dominant example of which is Amazon. Different companies in different stages of both their life and their industries live's have different focuses and metrics that matter. I'd submit that an IPO of a new company in a new field with big and fast growing profits is even rarer than a unicorn, maybe a unicorn in a leprechaun forest?
Yes I understand. But there are limits to expectations. Wallstreet is estimating the value at 30 billion! That means that in the end, after the company is mature there should be a net profit of at least 1 billion at a 1/30 ratio. Will this ever be reached? Income from Snapchat is mainly coming from advertising. What has Snapchat to offer to attract advertisers? There are a huge amount of competitors on internet, so what is their advantage over the others, like FB, Google, Twitter, Whatsapp... The last decade the number of applications in the market where Snapchat is operating has exploded. So more companies who want a piece of the cake. 30 billions is way to expensive, even taken in consideration that it is a startup. Amazon was quoting after 5 years around $20 (2002) and is now around $830. So roughly 40 times higher. If we do the same math on Snapchat: today valued at 30 billion, so it should go to 1200 billion!!!. Your arguments are correct but there are limitations in valueing companies.