Media

Snap Short Interest Falls 8 Million Shares

Wikimedia Commons (Maurizio Pesce)

The short interest in social media company Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) fell 8 million shares to 94 million for the period that ended January 12. Snap was the 11th most shorted stock on the New York Stock Exchange for the period, based on share volume.

The short position falloff is a bit of a reprieve for a company that has suffered from a share price collapse. Snap’s share price is down 46% in the past year to $14.44. The Nasdaq is up 26% over the same period.

In the past few days, Snap said it would allow users to share news stories outside its app. It is too early to say whether that will help its performance. Snap has recently laid off workers as it struggles to make money on its users. The company also redesigned its app, but the new features were mostly criticized as unlikely to be favored by users.

In its most recent quarter, revenue rose 62% to $208 million. However, Snap’s net loss was $443 million, compared with $124 million in the same period a year ago. Daily active users rose only 17% from the same quarter a year ago to 178 million. The numbers show Snap is smaller than several other dominant social media companies, led by Facebook. Its revenue in particular is extremely modest, and substantial growth cannot solve that problem quickly.

Snap is lost among the social network companies. People can only spend so much time online and with social media apps. As an also-ran in the space, it cannot make the case that it is anything more than a niche app. And niche apps get trampled by those that are used much more often.

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