Welcome to "#SocialStocks," The Fly's weekly recap of Wall Street's reactions to social media stock news.
IF YOU CANT BEAT THEM: Amazon (AMZN) is beta testing a feature in its app that would show users a TikTok-style photo and video feed of products for shoppers to share with a small number of its employees, to a person familiar with the testing told The Wall Street Journal's Sebastian Herrera. An Amazon spokeswoman said the company is "constantly testing new features to help make customers' lives a little easier," the report noted, adding that Amazon joins major technology firms such as Meta Platforms (META) and Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google in attempting to bump up engagement through a short video stream offering.
IN OR OUT: Paul Singer's Elliott Management disclosed, in an SEC filing, its holdings as of June 30. One of the fund's six new buys during the second quarter included Pinterest (PINS). Elliott exited four positions during the quarter, including Twitter (TWTR)' Lone Pine exited eight positions during the quarter, including Snap and increased its stake in seven holdings, including Meta . David Tepper's Appaloosa Management disclosed that it increased its stake in four holdings, including Meta. Chase Coleman's Tiger Global exited 19 positions during the quarter, including Zoom Video (ZM).
TAKE APP: Meta Platforms has recently invested in Singaporean startup Take App, which helps merchants sell products via Meta's WhatsApp, TechCrunch's Paul Sawers reported. Take App was founded by former Facebook engineering manager Youmin Kim, Sawers noted. While restaurants are the main focus for the Take App service, the company also collaborates with bakeries, grocery businesses and beauty salons, among others. “Our unique selling point is that we let merchants keep direct WhatsApp conversations with customers,” Kim explained to TechCrunch. “Merchants love the idea that they receive notifications and order details directly in WhatsApp — no other app or login is required.”
SNAPCHAT+ UPDATE: In a post to its corporate site earlier, Snap (SNAP) stated: "It's been just over six weeks since we launched Snapchat+ and we are thrilled to share there are over 1 million paying subscribers," citing internal data, as of August 8. "Available for $3.99/month, Snapchatters can enable Snapchat+ anytime by visiting their Profile. We'll continue to drop more features in the coming months. Snapchat+ is now available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, and Austria," the company commented.
TEAMWORK: Drivers for DoorDash (DASH) are now delivering items to consumers purchased online from Facebook Marketplace as part of a new partnership, reported The Wall Street Journal's Salvador Rodriguez and Preetika Rana. Meta and DoorDash, who confirmed that they tested the service in several U.S. cities in recent months, said the partnership is in early stages, according to the report. The service lets Facebook users buy and receive items from Marketplace from their homes. It can deliver items that fit in the trunk of a car and are up to 15 miles away, according to people familiar with the plan. Reportedly, deliveries would be made within 48 hours.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN: An ongoing conflict over privacy between Apple (AAPL) and Facebook is affecting the digital economy, with companies shifting billions in advertising spending as users continue to limit data available to advertisers, The Wall Street Journal's Salvador Rodriguez reported. In the years before launching iOS 14.5, which made it easier for iPhone and iPad users to opt out of letting apps track their activity, Apple suggested a series of deals that would earn the tech giant a slice of Facebook's revenue, the author said, citing people who either participated in the meetings or were briefed about them. Apple also discussed creating a subscription-based version of Facebook that would ad-free, the author said, noting that the two companies also haggled over whether Apple was entitled to a cut of Facebook's sales from boosted posts.
TEEN SURVEY: "The landscape of social media is ever-changing, especially among teens who often are on the leading edge of this space. A new Pew Research Center survey of American teenagers ages 13 to 17 finds TikTok has rocketed in popularity since its North American debut several years ago and now is a top social media platform for teens among the platforms covered in this survey. Some 67% of teens say they ever use TikTok, with 16% of all teens saying they use it almost constantly. Meanwhile, the share of teens who say they use Facebook, a dominant social media platform among teens in the Center's 2014-15 survey, has plummeted from 71% then to 32% today. YouTube tops the 2022 teen online landscape among the platforms covered in the Center's new survey, as it is used by 95% of teens. TikTok is next on the list of platforms that were asked about in this survey,67%, followed by Instagram and Snapchat, which are both used by about six-in-ten teens. After those platforms come Facebook with 32% and smaller shares who use Twitter, Twitch, WhatsApp, Reddit and Tumblr," wrote Emily Vogels, Risa Gelles-Watnick and Navid Massarat for Pew Research.
FTC TAKES AIM AT PRIVACY PROTECTION: The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, is expected to begin writing federal rules to expand online privacy protections, John McKinnon of The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. These rules could impose new responsibilities on companies that handle consumer data, such as barring the certain collection practices, the sources told the Journal. Congress is also considering legislation to impose rules to give Americans more control over their personal data, but it is unclear if they have enough votes to pass the legislation and some have raised concerns it could pre-empt tougher privacy standards at the state level. The new FTC rules could take years to go into effect and the commission could follow several different paths, sources told the Journal.
PREPARED FOR THE WORST: Snap employees are bracing for layoffs, Insider's Kali Hays reported A recent Q&A call with Snap's head of engineering left some workers feeling like layoffs at the company are not a matter of if, but when, according to the report.
MUSK VS. TWITTER LATEST: Elon Musk's lawyers have asked the judge in the Twitter case to compel the company to hand over the names of employees who count spam and bot accounts, Bloomberg's Jef Feeley and Kurt Wagner reported. According to people familiar with the allegations, the Tesla (TSLA) CEO contends the social media company isn't producing the names of employees specifically responsible for evaluating how much of Twitter's customer base is made up of spam and robot accounts. Musk's lawyers have asked the judge in the case to force Twitter to identify the workers so the defense can get their records and question them, the people said.
ANALYST COMMENTARY: Citi analyst Tyler Radke downgraded Zoom Video to Sell from Neutral with a $91 price target. He sees new hurdles to Zoom sustaining growth, including rising competition from Microsoft's (MSFT) Teams and macro-related weakness hitting small-to-mid size businesses, said Radke. He believes increasing churns in SMB and online users and rising competitions in Enterprise will more than offset new product strength and drive estimates below consensus, add Radke, who is making "significant cuts" to his own estimates for Zoom.
Loop Capital analyst Ananda Baruah maintained his Buy rating and $50 price target on Enovix (ENVX) while stating that the company's announcement of "accelerated engagements" with its Strategic Accounts - greater than $200B market capitalization - is giving him greater "conviction" in the stock's long-term upside potential. The customers are almost certainly Meta Platforms, Apple and Samsung (SSNLF), which now appear to be "moving with an increased urgency", the analyst tells investors in a research note, and he believes that Enovix could now experience a "mad rush" among these mega-cap companies jockeying for position both for volume and preferred economics.
Amazon.com
-2.6 (-1.80%)
Meta Platforms
-4.07 (-2.27%)
Alphabet
-1.81 (-1.49%)
Alphabet
-1.87 (-1.53%)
-0.255 (-0.57%)
Zoom Video
-6.57 (-6.02%)
Snap
-0.53 (-4.21%)
DoorDash
-5.9 (-8.02%)
Apple
+1.55 (+0.90%)
Tesla
-10.23 (-1.11%)
Enovix
-3.57 (-14.30%)
Samsung
+ (+0.00%)