Twitter Inc (TWTR) Remains a Big Question Mark Says Analyst

Twitter IPO
Image credit: Anthony Quintano

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has been trying to turnaround the microblogging company amid a stagnating user growth. Analysts and investors remain uncertain regarding the company’s future.

Today, some analysts expressed concerns regarding Twitter’s future following the report that Jeff Seibert, the head of its consumer product vacated his role and decided to return to his position at Fabric, the new mobile development platform of the microblogging company.

Since 2014, Twitter already lost four executive leading its product development unit. Last month, Jana Messerschmidt, head of business development and Nathan Hubbard, head of media and commerce left the company.

A spokesperson for Twitter released an e-mail stating that the company is “focused on delivering five product priorities— refining our core service, live-streaming video, creators, safety and developers — as well as recruiting great talent. We’ve successfully increased our shipping cadence on our core service and have asked some of our top leaders to take on key roles in the other priority areas.”

Twitter lacks exceptionalism

Ivan Feinseth, the chief information officer at Tigress Financial Partners told TheStreet that Twitter remains a big question mark. According to him, “I think there’s a lack of exceptionalism” and “nobody is really sure” if it is a sinking ship or a company that is currently undervalued.

He added that investors are concern on the fact that Dorsey is serving as CEO for both Twitter and Square (NYSE:SQ), the mobile payments company he founded.

“The whole thing is a question mark. It’s not really bad, but it’s not really good. Investors want to buy in the really good,” said Feinseth.

On the other hand, Neil Doshi, an analyst at Mizuho Securities shared a similar view. He said, “From an investor’s perspective, it’s definitely a concern [from the] outside looking in. I think there’s only so much Jack Dorsey can do running two companies.”

Video could be a catalyst

Doshi also noted that one of the potential catalysts for Twitter is Video, which could attract new users and encourage users who left the platform to come back. According to him, the microblogging company did a good job integrating Periscope and Vine.

“They’ve really started to push for more video to be shown on Twitter. “As you think about Twitter being a live service, there’s no better way to describe and show live [events],” he said.

The stock price of Twitter declined 1.57% to $15.03 per share around 2:32 in the afternoon in New York. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock dropped from $38.82 per share to as low as $13.73 per share.