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As the Q4 earnings season comes to a close, it’s time to take stock of this quarter’s best and worst performers in the social networking industry, including Yelp (NYSE:YELP) and its peers.
Businesses must meet their customers where they are, which over the past decade has come to mean on social networks. In 2020, users spent over 2.5 hours a day on social networks, a figure that has increased every year since measurement began. As a result, businesses continue to shift their advertising and marketing dollars online.
The 5 social networking stocks we track reported a satisfactory Q4. As a group, revenues beat analysts’ consensus estimates by 2.5% while next quarter’s revenue guidance was 1.2% below.
In light of this news, share prices of the companies have held steady. On average, they are relatively unchanged since the latest earnings results.
Yelp (NYSE:YELP)
Founded by PayPal alumni Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, Yelp (NYSE:YELP) is an online platform that helps people discover local businesses through crowd-sourced reviews.
Yelp reported revenues of $362 million, up 5.7% year on year. This print exceeded analysts’ expectations by 3.3%. Despite the top-line beat, it was still a mixed quarter for the company with an impressive beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates.
“Yelp's 2024 results reflect the strong execution on our services roadmap,” said Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s co-founder and chief executive officer.
Yelp delivered the slowest revenue growth of the whole group. The stock is down 5.3% since reporting and currently trades at $38.39.
Is now the time to buy Yelp? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free.
Best Q4: Snap (NYSE:SNAP)
Founded by Stanford University students Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy, and originally called Picaboo, Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP) is an image centric social media network.
Snap reported revenues of $1.56 billion, up 14.4% year on year, outperforming analysts’ expectations by 0.6%. The business had a strong quarter with a solid beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates.
Although it had a fine quarter compared to its peers, the market seems unhappy with the results as the stock is down 5.4% since reporting. It currently trades at $11.
Is now the time to buy Snap? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free.
Weakest Q4: Meta (NASDAQ:META)
Famously founded by Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard dorm, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) operates a collection of the largest social networks in the world - Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, along with its metaverse focused Reality Labs.