THE MOTLEY FOOL – May 29 – Momo, the owner of two top dating apps in China, shed 30% of its value over the past 12 months as investors fled Chinese tech stocks amid the escalating trade war. It was also hit by a triple whammy of bad news over the past month – regulators ordered the removal of its Tantan app from Chinese app stores, Apple suspended in-app payments for Tantan, and the company voluntarily suspended news feed posts in both Momo and Tantan for an internal review. Momo's revenue rose 35% annually to $555M in the first quarter, beating estimates by $23M. Its monthly active users on Momo and Tantan increased 11% to 114.4M, while its paid users on both apps jumped 73% to 14M. Those growth rates look solid, but Momo's growth in revenue and MAUs decelerated significantly over the past year. Momo expects its revenue to rise 27% to 30% annually during the second quarter. That forecast is encouraging, since it indicates that Momo can still squeeze out revenue from its namesake app's existing users. It also suggests that Momo could easily beat its own guidance if its services are fully restored during the quarter.
Category: Momo
Momo Q1 Results – Revenue Up 35%
PR NEWSWIRE – May 28 – Net revenues increased 35% YOY to RMB3,722.9M ($554.7M) in the Q1 of 2019. Net income attributable to Momo decreased to RMB289.3M ($43.1M) from RMB825.2M in the same period of 2018. Monthly Active Users on Momo app were 114.4M in March 2019, compared to 103M in March 2018. Total paying users of live video service and value-added service, including 5M paying users of Tantan, were 14M, up from 8.1M in Q1 2018. Live video service revenues were RMB2,689.4M ($400M), up 14% YOY. The growth in live video revenues was contributed by the increase in quarterly paying users, as well as the increase in average revenues per paying user per quarter.
A Class Action Lawsuit Has Been Filed Against Momo
GLOBE NEWSWIRE – May 15 – Bragar Eagel & Squire, announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all persons or entities who purchased Momo Shares between April 21, 2015 and April 29, 2019. Investors have until July 15, 2019 to apply to the Court to be appointed as lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. The complaint alleges that throughout the period, defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the company's business, operational and compliance policies.
Momo and Tantan Suspend Social Feeds in Content Cleanup
TECHNODE – May 13 – Shares of dating app company Momo fell on Friday after announcing it would temporarily shut down the social newsfeed on its platform for a month amid tightening government scrutiny. Momo users are restricted from posting on the newsfeed until June 11. Dating app, Tantan, made a parallel announcement on Friday night, saying its social feature, "Moments," would be suspended for a month as it is conducts a comprehensive investigation and works to enhance its screening capabilities. The incident follows Tantan's removal from major Chinese Android app stores in late April. Tantan responded by saying the removal was due to the "violations" of relevant rules and it had launched a total investigation on the platform. It remains unknown when Tantan will be available on app stores again. Momo had acquired Tantan in a $600M buyout in February 2018.
Dating App Tantan Removed From Android App Stores
TECHNODE – Apr 29 – Chinese dating app Tantan has been taken down from major Android app stores. As of Monday morning it was still available on Apple's App Store as well as on smartphone brand Xiaomi's Mi Store. Tantan stated that the takedown was due to "violations," and that the company would work to rectify the issues. In February 2018, Tantan was acquired by its larger competitor Momo in a $600M buyout.
The Meet Group: Momo of the West
by Lauren Hallanan
See full article at Medium.com
Momo: A Great Tech Stock No One Is Talking About
PROFIT CONFIDENTIAL – Apr 15 – Part of the problem might be that Momo is based not out of Silicon Valley, but China. And the U.S. and China have not exactly had the closest friendship over the years. Fraudulent Chinese stocks have also been an ongoing concern. With a market cap of $7.6B, Momo is not exactly a tiny company operating in a shady business. It's a leading mobile social networking app and deserves much more attention than it receives from the average investor. The company's monthly active users (MAUs) reached 113.3M in December 2018, up from the 99.1M YOY. Momo stock is up 71.5% year-to-date.
Momo: High Growth, Stock Still Cheap and a Special Dividend
SEEKING ALPHA – Mar 15 – Momo is a mobile platform in China. It consists of the main Momo app, which combines live video streaming, chatting, gaming and TanTan, the Tinder of China. On Tuesday, March 12, Momo jumped 12% after it had released its Q4 and FY 2018 earnings before the market opened. Momo has beaten expectations every single time since its IPO in 2015. Momo is hugely profitable. And without Tantan's financial impact, the profitability would even have been higher. Momo invested heavily in 2018. With an extra 57% spending, a lot of companies would see their bottom line wither. But not Momo. Tang Yan, Momo's founder-CEO, was righteously very proud of the bottom line margins, which grew despite the very heavy investments. Because of that huge profitability, Momo is able to give a present to its shareholders: a special dividend. The special cash dividend is $0.62 per ADS, a 1.64% one-time yield at the current price ($37.76 at the moment of writing). The total amount of cash dividends the company will have to pay will be ~$128M. Tantan has still less users than Tinder. The dating app started the monetization only in Q1 2018: in January it started its VIP service. Then later, in July, it added two extra paying services: A See Who Likes Me stream and Super Exposure. With these three services, TanTan already has 3.9M paying subscribers which is already 90% of Tinder's number of subscribers. In Q4, TanTan's total revenue was $33M up 36% QoQ. While this is only a small number, I think the Chinese dating market could still be in its infancy and I expect it to grow for at least a decade.
See full article at Seeking Alpha
Momo Predicts Big Growth in Eastern Markets for Its Dating App Tantan
KR ASIA – Mar 14 – The founder and CEO of Chinese location-based social app Momo, Tang Yan, said the company will pursue opportunities in overseas markets for its dating app Tantan. Momo acquired Tantan last May in a $735M cash and stock swap deal. Tantan is one of the top ten social apps on Android in Nepal, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with ~10M installs. Tantan had 3.9M paying users in the Q4 2018.
by Song Jingli
See full article at KrASIA
Momo’s Financial Results: 2018 Annual Revenue ~$2B
PR NEWSWIRE – Mar 12 – Q4 2018 net revenues increased 50% YOY to $559M. Net income increased slightly YOY to $96M. Monthly Active Users ("MAU") on Momo app were 113.3M in Dec 2018, compared to 99M in Dec 2017. Total paying users, including 3.9M paying users of Tantan were 13M, compared to 7.8M in Q4 2017. Live video service revenues were $430M in the Q4 2018, up 36% YOY. Annual revenues increased 51% YOY to $1,950M. Net income was $409.5M, up from $320M.