LAW360 – Mar 20 – Match Group has filed another intellectual property lawsuit. This time against Tantan, a dating service billed as "China's Tinder". Match Group is accusing Tantan of infringing its design patents and trademarks by copying Tinder's swiping system including "nearly identical" match screen. Tantan was acquired by Chinese social media app Momo for $760M last month.
by Bill Donahue
See full article at Law360
MOMO – Mar 7 – Net revenues increased 57% YOY to $386.4M. Net income increased to $97.5M in the Q4 of 2017 from $83.8M in the same period last year. Monthly Active Users were 99.1M in December 2017, compared to 81.1M in December 2016. Full Year 2017 Highlights: Net revenues increased 138% YOY to $1.3B for the full year of 2017. Net income was $318.6M for the full year of 2017, compared with $145.3M in 2016. Live video service revenues continued its momentum and generated revenues of $328M in Q4 of 2017. The rapid growth in live video revenues was contributed by the increase in the quarterly paying users, which was 4.3M for Q4 of 2017, as well as, the increase in the average revenues per paying user per quarter.
SEEKING ALPHA – Mar 7 – Momo has recently acquired dating app Tantan for a combination of 5.3M class A shares as well as $600M in cash. Tantan, the Chinese Tinder, has ~100M users with ~10M being active daily. YY, a competitor to Momo in the live-streaming space, tried to acquire Tantan last year but was unsuccessful. According to multiple reports, it does not appear that the company will try and block the deal either. Over the past two weeks, Momo has received a number of Buy ratings from analysts but despite all the Buy ratings, shares of Momo dropped ~15% the week following the acquisition. The biggest impact could be the company's own press release stating that it was going to release Q4 earnings. A number of investors have focused solely on Momo's live paying users which have remained stagnant at 4.1M quarter-over-quarter. This will likely be a big focus; however, with the recent acquisition of Tantan, investors should not focus solely on this metric as the acquisition of Tantan changes everything. Momo is undervalued as it continues to trade at just 15 times 2018 expected earnings. Seeing as how Match Group is up ~150% over the past 12 months and trades at more than 30 times expected earnings, it's time for Momo to start trading at a premium too.
by Justin Giles
See full article at Seeking Alpha
FINANCIAL TIMES – Feb 23 – Momo paid for the top Chinese dating app $600.9M in cash and 5.3M shares. That brings the total value of the deal to ~$760M. Tantan, dubbed Chinese Tinder, had raised $120M, including a $70m last year. It has enabled 5B matches since its launch. (Tinder claims 8B matches.) Tantan's management will stay and the companies will continue to operate independently.
by Yuan Yang
See full article at Financial Times
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INVESTOR PLACE – Feb 4 – China dating app turned live-streaming platform Momo had a really good start to 2017. But the back half of the year wasn't as pretty. As soon as Chinese regulators started cracking down on live streaming – calling it harmful to social morality – investors freaked out that Momo's massive growth could disappear at any second. MOMO stock subsequently dropped from $40 in mid-2017 to $20 by late Nov 2017. Back in June, China's Ministry of Culture didn't put a halt on all live-streaming platforms. They simply shut down 12 apps for showing pornographic content. So long as MOMO plays by the rules, the app should continue to grow in popularity. Investors appear to be catching on that Chinese regulation concerns were overblown. MOMO stock is up 40% since early December.
INVESTORPLACE – Jan 10 – Momo has morphed over the last couple years into a legitimate and much more diverse entertainment platform. Wall Street doesn't appear impressed or is at the very least, incredibly skeptical. Momo stock has gotten hammered in the aftermath of its last two earnings reports despite producing massive growth numbers and easily topping forecasts. It has been all downhill for Momo stock on the price chart lately despite a 12-month gain in shares of nearly 30%. Looking at the Momo stock chart, a weekly bearish flag is developing. It's the type of pattern worthy of striking technical fear into bulls and instilling confidence into bears. But if we can put on our contrarian headgear, it's typically when conditions look their worst – and I believe MOMO qualifies in this context, that the end is actually near in a good sort of way for bulls.
MOMO – Nov 28 – Net revenues increased 126% YOY to $354.5M. Net income increased to $79.1M in Q3 of 2017 from $39M in the same period last year. Monthly Active Users were 94M in Sep 2017, compared to 77M in Sep 2016. Live video service continued its momentum and generated revenues of $301M. The rapid growth in live video revenues was contributed by the increase in the quarterly paying users, which was 4.1M, as well as, the increase in the average revenues per paying user per quarter.
THE MOTLEY FOOL – Nov 21 – One of last week's biggest gainers was Momo, rising 10.1% ahead of next week's quarterly report. There wasn't any company-specific news breaking on Momo, but many Chinese growth stocks inched higher after Alibaba posted better-than-expected Singles Day results. Singles Day is a shopping holiday along the lines of Black Friday. It's popular with China's young consumers, celebrating being single. Alibaba reported $25.3B in gross merchandise volume transacted through its platform on Singles Day, 39% ahead of the previous year's performance.
THE MOTLEY FOOL – Nov 7 – Chinese app maker Momo lost about a third of its market value over the past three months due to concerns about its growth, the rise or rival apps, and tighter regulations regarding social media platforms and streaming videos.
Momo is a very risky stock since nearly all of its growth depends on a small % of its active users spending a lot more money on their top broadcasters.