Analyst Rich Greenfield: Snap Needs More Than Users to Survive
*By Conor White*
Snap's mixed bag on earnings points to a murky future for the Snapchat app, which may hold more promise as a messaging platform than the ad-supported content powerhouse many people expected it to be, said BTIG's media and tech analyst, Rich Greenfield.
"I think the challenge is more and more time spent feels like it's shifting to communications and away from content," Greenfield said Wednesday in an interview with Cheddar. "So their core use case is very sticky for the entire generation that uses it as their iMessage, essentially."
Optimistic investors may be heartened by Snap's revenue beat in the second quarter, but Greenfield said numbers from the company's earnings report on Tuesday are nothing to celebrate.
"I've never cut my target for a company in terms of revenues by 50 percent over a 14-month period," Greenfield said. "We thought when this company went public they would do $2.5 billion in revenue this year, they're struggling to get to the $1.1, $1.2 \[billion\] revenue this year. "
The analyst said it isn't enough to have millions of people using Snapchat as a messaging platform, since "filters don't make billions of dollars," he said.
Content is still key to Snap's future as a business, Greenfield said.
"They've got to convince people, to make this a multi-billion dollar business, they need people to spend a lot of time on the right side of the app, consuming content."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-loses-daily-active-users-for-first-time-ever).
Enterprise blockchain provider, BlockApps, recently raised $41 million in a new funding round led by Liberty City Ventures. BlockApps builds products and applications for other companies on its own blockchain platform called STRATO. The company says its blockchain technology can help businesses increase the value of their assets, streamline their supply chains, and help them meet their sustainability goals. Kieren James-Lubin, President & CEO of BlockApps, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Tesla has continued to beat expectations as illustrated by its last quarter earnings despite issues in Shanghai, China. Dan Ives, the managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, joined Cheddar News to talk about the resilience of Tesla. "I thought they were almost Cinderella-like numbers," he said about the delivery numbers. "They are performing just miles ahead of any auto player, and that's why the stock is doing what it's doing. In my opinion, they're expanding their lead in EVs, even in this Category 5 hurricane that we're seeing in China." Ives noted that issues in China could pose ongoing challenges going forward even with the largely positive outlook.
Dr. Neta Lavon, CTO and VP of R&D at Aleph Farms, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how the team sent cow cells to space to further research the production of meat in space, and why developing cultivated meat is so critical to the future of space travel.
A new report from DrakeStar Partners, an investment bank that closely tracks the sector, said $98.7 billion in deals were announced or closed in the first three months of the year. T
AT&T reported a 2.5 percent rise in its core wireless revenue for the first quarter as its 5G rollout expands across the United States, even as the company pivots away from streaming to focus on its communication business amid heightened demand for high-speed internet. CEO John Stankey joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss the company's 5G plans, its divestment from WarnerMedia, and its push into the metaverse. "To the extent that we start to see social aspects come into the metaverse that allows people to — as they're out and about — experience those kinds of things, that just puts a higher premium on mobile networks and scaled robust mobile networks to enable those applications, which is our bread and butter, and it's probably one of our best returning and best yielding businesses," he said.
The last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukraine, has been given a brief respite, the Biden admin is appealing the transit mask mandate being overturned, and Tesla reports earnings. Here is all the news you Need2Know for April 21, 2022.
