By: The Economist
May 20, 2021
A couple of years ago Snap, the company behind Snapchat, a social-media app, came close to imitating the feature for which it was then famous: digital photos that self-destruct ten seconds after the recipient views them. Shortly after a headline-grabbing initial public offering in 2017, the firm faced a user revolt triggered by an unpopular redesign, falling rates after it started automatically auctioning ad space and an exodus of executives. Its shares dropped precipitously in value, at one point in late 2018 sinking below $5, less than a fifth of the price they fetched when the firm started trading.
Snap has since staged one of the greatest turnarounds in tech history. When it reported its latest quarterly results in April, it pleasantly surprised analysts again, just as it has for the past few quarters. Revenue grew by 66% from a year earlier, to $770m. The number of daily users reached 280m, an addition of more than 50m over the same period. The firm’s share price has surged by 208% in the past 12 months, to $54. “The pandemic exposed the resilience of the changes we have made,” says Evan Spiegel, Snap’s boss.