Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has been innovating new ad products very quickly, and Goldman Sachs analysts like it. In fact, they think the microblogging company will increase its pace of innovation even more in the coming months.
Twitter more than triples enhancements
In a report dated July 10, 2014, analysts Heath Terry, Heather Bellini and their team say that since the fourth quarter, Twitter has focused on driving user growth, engagement and monetization. In fact, the company has more than tripled the number of innovations it has released than in any other previous quarter. They believe that keeping the innovation high and continuing to make changes in products and engineering leadership will end up impacting the company’s ability to both grow and engage its user base.
The Goldman Sachs team thinks that the true value of Twitter’s user engagement, reach and platform is best estimated by looking at advertiser adoption rather than the company’s share price. They think Twitter’s share price will rise as the company keeps delivering in its earnings reports.
Twitter’s engagement, monetization
The analysts note that investors have continued to focus on Twitter’s monthly average user numbers, but they say it understates the value of the company’s reach. They note that comScore reports that 116 million unique users logged into Twitter during the month of May. That’s double the 57 million monthly active users the company actually reported. They think that the gap between these two numbers creates an “easy target” for Twitter’s product development teams.
Terry, Bellini and their team note that over the last two quarters, Twitter has driven greater and greater advertiser adoption through enhancements. Specifically, the company offered Promoted App ads, improved its analytics and global ad capabilities, especially focusing on live events. The Goldman Sachs team provided this timeline of Twitter’s innovations since the third quarter of 2012:
Twitter’s innovations
They also believe Twitter will continue to accelerate its pace of innovation, even though it has already dramatically sped up over the last three quarters. They think the addition of former Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) executive Daniel Graf as the company’s vice president of Consumer Products and of Alex Roetter as the vice president of Engineering will “further the company’s critical ease of use goals.”
They continue to include Twitter on their Americas Buy list with a price target of $52 per share.
