Can Snap Close the ARPU Gap?
Snap's (NYSE: SNAP) average revenue per user, or ARPU, climbed to $2.58 in the fourth quarter. That's up 23% year over year.
However, management insists there's still a long way to go for it to improve its user monetization. "Looking at our current ad products and applying comparative industry [cost per ad impression] to our own inventory, we are in a position to meaningfully close the ARPU gap relative to our peers," Chief Business Officer Jeremi Gorman said during Snap's fourth-quarter earnings call.
CFO Derek Anderson and CEO Evan Spiegel later said Twitter's (NYSE: TWTR) ARPU is a near-term benchmark that Snap is driving toward. For reference, Twitter's ARPU was about $6.28 in the fourth quarter of 2018, but it may have declined last year as it grows its user base faster outside of the United States. Still, it shows Snap's ambitions to more than double its ARPU over the next few years.
Source Fool.com