Snap Inc.’s stock price spiked more than 30% in early trading on Wednesday morning, one day after Snapchat reported adding 11 million new users during the third quarter and a 52% increase in revenue.
The jump about an hour into trading on Wednesday put Snap’s stock at $37.10 per share. If those gains hold through the rest of the day, Snap will easily top its all-time high closing price of $28.66, which had been set on Monday.
On Tuesday, Snap reported Q3 sales of $679 million, which trounced analyst estimates of $556 million on average. The 11 million new daily users marked an increase of 19% from the same time last year and put Snapchat at 249 million users overall. And more users led to more Snaps being sent, with the company reporting a 25% increase in pictures and messaging from last year.
“The adoption of augmented reality is happening faster than we had previously anticipated, and we are working together as a team to execute on the many opportunities in front of us,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a statement.
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Wall Street firms lined up on Wednesday morning to sing Snap’s praises.
“Overall, we believe Snap’s outsized [third quarter] results were a function of ad recovery, strong execution, & engagement growth,” JP Morgan said in a note to clients. “Importantly, Snap’s brand-safe platform increasingly resonates [with] marketers during a noisy time for social media overall.”
RBC analysts raised Snap’s price target to $45 per share, meanwhile, and said the company’s third quarter performance showed its strong results during the first half of the year were “no fluke.”
