Evercore ISI Is Warming To Twitter (TWTR) But No Upgrade Yet

Evercore ISI analyst, Ken Sena, reconsidered his investment thesis and reiterated his Hold rating on Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) but raised estimates and his PT. While the opportunity in video is large, the market is competitive and its too early to conclude this will create a growth inflection point. However, in assessing the opportunities around live video, direct messaging, and progress on formats, targeting and measurement, he sees reason to increase estimates for the full year. The PT goes to $20 from $17.

Live video online is increasingly within reach for Twitter thanks to the amount of time spent on mobile rivaling traditional broadcasting, the ability to drive deeper engagement around the content, as well as the ability to deliver a more targeted native ad experience. It is true that Twitter’s usage pales in comparison to Facebook or YouTube but it is arguably the best platform when it comes to real-time engagements with celebrities, politicians, and brands.

Periscope engagement has been mixed, the recent NFL announcement is fairly limited, and Facebook is only getting more aggressive. Specifically, Facebook has dedicated a 150 engineer team to the Live feature that just launched this week, which offers several advantages over Periscope beyond its scale lead including: APIs so newsrooms can use their own equipment; the ability to save videos; and more robust discovery. Twitter holds a unique position within event driven entertainment, and if the company can build on its first-mover advantage, it stands to be a contender in this area.

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Twitter, Inc. click here. For more ratings news on Twitter, Inc. click here.

Shares of Twitter, Inc. closed at $17.26 yesterday.

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