One of the most anticipated initial public offerings (IPOs) of 2024 was Reddit (NYSE: RDDT), a social media company that is best known for its subject-matter forums, called subreddits. It’s a landing page for people interested in researching a topic but also looking for user feedback and commentary.
In general, IPO stocks tend to be surrounded by excitement. And given Reddit’s popularity, the company’s market debut has garnered a lot of scrutiny. Let’s dig into whether or not the stock is a good buying opportunity and assess some of the risks.
The social media realm is fiercely competitive. But with 73 million daily active users, Reddit has proved it can reach critical mass and spur user engagement.However, it doesn’t have as broad a reach when it’s benchmarked against other such platforms.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has 3.2 billion daily active users across its various apps. Alphabet‘s Google and YouTube consistently have over 100 billion site visits per month, making them the world’s top two most-frequented websites. And the review board Yelp averages about 74 million monthly unique visitors across desktop and mobile formats.
Reddit competes with all of these platforms in some capacity. And yet, despite the company’s renown, its engagement is actually much smaller than other social media businesses. As a result, the company’s growth has been somewhat mundane.
Revenue increased 21% last year, but the company is still hemorrhaging cash, posting a net loss of $91 million in 2023. Although this was an improvement from the prior year, I question Reddit’s long-term potential given its smaller size compared to the competition.
Since advertising is the primary form of revenue, it’s difficult to see a path whereby the company’s growth really begins to accelerate and consistent profitability becomes a hallmark of the business.
Image source: Getty Images.
Around the time of the IPO, Reddit began to unveil a new marketing effort surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). At first, I thought this was merely an effort to join the AI bandwagon.
But after looking at the platform’s weak user engagement levels compared to competitors, I became more convinced that the company is trying to pivot its business model. In other words, since Reddit does not have reach that’s commensurate to some of its peers, it could have a difficult time attracting more advertisers.
For this reason, AI could represent some new avenues for growth. Specifically, Reddit is experimenting with data licensing. According to regulatory filings, it has signed $203 million worth of data licensing deals. In essence, this gives customers such as Alphabet access to Reddit’s data library, which they can use to help train their own generative AI systems.
I’ll admit that this strategy intrigues me. But given its newness, I think it’s too early to label Reddit as a pure-play AI opportunity.
The last area that makes me a little skittish about Reddit’s investment prospects is its potential to become a meme stock. To be fair, technically any stock could become a meme investment if it begins to experience abnormal trading volatility that is seemingly disconnected from the underlying fundamentals of the business.
I see things a little differently with Reddit, however. The capital markets experienced an unprecedented jolt a few years ago, and a source of this movement was GameStop stock. A day trader named Keith Gill — known as Roaring Kitty on Reddit — was the main personality behind the GameStop saga.
Gill began posting his thesis behind GameStop stock in a subreddit called r/wallstreetbets. Normally, I’d say this was an anomaly. But in Reddit’s own S-1 filing, the company specifically calls out r/wallstreetbets as a risk factor.
This doesn’t necessarily mean much, but I think prudent investors might want to think twice about potentially rolling the dice on Reddit stock, which I see as the capital markets’ poster child for casino-like investments.
While Reddit could be a good opportunity in the long run, I think investors should monitor how the data licensing agreements play out and assess whether the company is contributing to the AI narrative in its own unique way. For now, I think there are more-proven and established players in the social media landscape, and I would look for value in those.
Should you invest $1,000 in Reddit right now?
Before you buy stock in Reddit, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Reddit wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than tripled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.
*Stock Advisor returns as of April 1, 2024
Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
—
Blog powered by G6
Disclaimer! A guest author has made this post. G6 has not checked the post. its content and attachments and under no circumstances will G6 be held responsible or liable in any way for any claims, damages, losses, expenses, costs or liabilities whatsoever (including, without limitation, any direct or indirect damages for loss of profits, business interruption or loss of information) resulting or arising directly or indirectly from your use of or inability to use this website or any websites linked to it, or from your reliance on the information and material on this website, even if the G6 has been advised of the possibility of such damages in advance.
For any inquiries, please contact [email protected]
