RBC Capital Markets has released its latest social media survey, and the results suggest Snap Inc (NYSE: SNAP) is keeping its grip on the notoriously fickle teen user demographic.
According to the survey, the Snapchat app is still by far the most popular app among teens aged 13 to 18, which is good news for investors of that struggling stock, which has fallen more than 35 percent since its initial public offering this year.
Among teens in that age group, RBC found that 79 percent currently have a Snapchat account compared to just 73 percent who have an Instagram account and 57 percent who have a Facebook ( FB) account.
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Teens were also asked which platform they would choose if they were “trapped on a deserted island” and could only access one app, and 44 percent chose Snapchat. Only 24 percent chose Facebook’s Instagram and 14 percent chose Facebook. Snapchat’s numbers have dramatically improved in the last year as well. When asked the same question a year ago, only 28 percent of teens chose Snapchat.
The RBC survey mostly echoes the results Piper Jaffray got from its teen social media survey in October. Piper Jaffray found that 47 percent of teens prefer Snapchat as their top social media platform compared to 24 percent who prefer Instagram and 9 percent who choose either Facebook or Twitter ( TWTR).
“In terms of trends, Snapchat is clearly rising among the 13-18 cohort, but Instagram has had positive trends across every age cohort over the past three iterations,” RBC analyst Mark Mahaney says.
But despite Snapchat’s exceptional performance among teens, Facebook still reignes supreme across all age groups. Snapchat, on the other hand, has a lot of ground to make up. Among social media users of all ages, 91 percent have a Facebook account, 47 percent have an Instagram account, 42 percent have a Twitter account and only 31 percent have a Snapchat account.
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“Among the four major U.S. social media networks, trends were mostly weak for Facebook, clearly positive for Instagram, weak for Twitter and mixed for Snap,” Mahaney says.
Snap stock has regained some positive momentum of late following an upgrade to “overweight” from Barclays earlier this month. Analyst Ross Sandler said there are lots of things for investors to like about Snap.
“In short, we think the worst is behind SNAP, and the company is likely to get back on track in 2018,” Ross said.
RBC has a “sector perform” rating and $15 price target for Snap stock.
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Weakened Snap Inc Still Rules Teen Scene originally appeared on usnews.com
