▲ Snapchat
Sexts come and go, but equity is forever
You might need to ask a tween to help explain this, but we’ll do our best. Snapchat, the app that allows users to send disappearing photo messages to one another, is now rumored to be valued at $10 billion. Various news outlets this week reported that Chinese Internet company Alibaba, which has expansion plans in North America, is interested in purchasing a stake in Snapchat, and assessing it to be worth 11 figures. (For comparison, that’s almost twice as much as BlackBerry’s current market value.) Last year, Facebook reportedly offered to buy Snapchat for a mere $3 billion, but was rebuffed for its shamefully low-ball offer. It should be noted that so far, Snapchat has never actually made any money. Instead, Snapchat has young, engaged users who send each other more than 700 million photos a day, an audience advertisers desperately want to reach.
▼ Nintendo
Sorry, your princess is in another castle
Anyone who grew up in the ’90s will remember getting into fanatical arguments, usually at the peak of a sugar high, about which gaming console was better: Nintendo or Sega Genesis? Clearly the answer is Nintendo, but it’s harder to defend the company these days. Nintendo lost $97 million dollars in its most recent quarter, and what’s worse is that the company’s handheld gaming console, Nintendo 3DS, is on the decline. It was a blockbuster product for Nintendo a few years ago, but the company sold fewer than 900,000 in the last quarter, down from 1.4 million at this time last year. The falling sales can be blamed on smartphones, which have made a separate handheld gaming device redudundant. There will still be a dedicated market of hardcore gamers for Nintendo to service, but the masses may already be lost to the siren song of Candy Crush.
Blogs & Comment
Winners & Losers: Snapchat hits $10 billion, Nintendo falls into a pit
That's a lot of selfies
By Joe Castaldo
▲ Snapchat
Sexts come and go, but equity is forever
You might need to ask a tween to help explain this, but we’ll do our best. Snapchat, the app that allows users to send disappearing photo messages to one another, is now rumored to be valued at $10 billion. Various news outlets this week reported that Chinese Internet company Alibaba, which has expansion plans in North America, is interested in purchasing a stake in Snapchat, and assessing it to be worth 11 figures. (For comparison, that’s almost twice as much as BlackBerry’s current market value.) Last year, Facebook reportedly offered to buy Snapchat for a mere $3 billion, but was rebuffed for its shamefully low-ball offer. It should be noted that so far, Snapchat has never actually made any money. Instead, Snapchat has young, engaged users who send each other more than 700 million photos a day, an audience advertisers desperately want to reach.
▼ Nintendo
Sorry, your princess is in another castle
Anyone who grew up in the ’90s will remember getting into fanatical arguments, usually at the peak of a sugar high, about which gaming console was better: Nintendo or Sega Genesis? Clearly the answer is Nintendo, but it’s harder to defend the company these days. Nintendo lost $97 million dollars in its most recent quarter, and what’s worse is that the company’s handheld gaming console, Nintendo 3DS, is on the decline. It was a blockbuster product for Nintendo a few years ago, but the company sold fewer than 900,000 in the last quarter, down from 1.4 million at this time last year. The falling sales can be blamed on smartphones, which have made a separate handheld gaming device redudundant. There will still be a dedicated market of hardcore gamers for Nintendo to service, but the masses may already be lost to the siren song of Candy Crush.