Snap soars on NYSE debut at $24 per share

Snap, the parent company of messaging app Snapchat and Spectacles smartglasses, made its debut today on the NYSE with a $24 per share, trading more than 40% higher than its original IPO price. The IPO is said to be 12 times oversubscribed. At 200 million shares, Snap raised $3.4 billion and was valued at nearly $24 billion as of its pricing. Twitter’s valuation, in comparison, is $11 billion. Snap shares soared briefly as high as $25, putting the company’s valuation at $30 billion. Snapchat had 161 million daily active users (DAUs) in the last month of the quarter that ended on December 31, 2016. It had 69 million DAUs in North America at the end of the fourth quarter, as per S1 filing submitted by Snap to the US Securities and Regulatory Commission, earlier this year. It’s second largest DAU base is in Europe (sans Russia and Turkey). Investors buying shares in the IPO are buying non-voting shares. CEO Evan Spiegel and Co-founder Bobby Murphy will have complete control over voting shares of the company. According to the Venice, California-based Snap, most of its users are in the 18-34 years age bracket. Users below 25 years of age, on average visit Snapchat more than 20 times a day and spend 30 minutes on it. In comparison, users above 25 years of age, open Snapchat 12 times a day on average and spend about 20 minutes on the app. Most user engagement happens on iOS. Snap was founded in 2011.