(Reuters) - Social media platform Reddit's ( RDDT ) market debut on Thursday ended a more than two year-long wait but shifts the focus to how it will compare with the other publicly listed peers.
Despite its cult-like status, the company has failed to replicate the success of Meta Platforms' ( META ) Facebook and Elon Musk's X.
Here's how the 19-year-old company compares with the larger social media companies:
REVENUE
With just more than $800 million in annual revenue, Reddit ( RDDT ) is much smaller than peers. Most of the company's revenue comes from ads as its communities of users post and discuss everything from history to stocks and AI, making it a valuable platform for some advertisers.
Reddit ( RDDT ) recently struck a deal with Alphabet's Google unit to license its data for training large language models -- the technology behind generative AI applications like Gemini.
VALUATION, IPO FUNDS RAISED
Reddit's ( RDDT ) IPO raised $748 million after it was priced at the top end of the $31 to $34 range, valuing the company at $6.4 billion.
That said, Reddit's ( RDDT ) IPO valuation is less than half of what X, then Twitter, and about one-fourth of what Snap had at their respective IPOs. Facebook, rebranded as Meta in 2021, was valued at more than $100 billion in its IPO in 2012 in the biggest listing for a social media firm. Meta, also home to Instagram and WhatsApp, counts nearly half the world's population among its users.
USER NUMBERS
As a niche platform, Reddit ( RDDT ) caters to over 70 million daily active users, far lower than peers. The platform has more than 100,000 online forums.
Still, Reddit ( RDDT ) has some advantages. It has a relatively lower expenses profile and strong growth rates for its ads business.
Brokerage Bernstein said Reddit's ( RDDT ) revenue to full-time employees ratio is 50% lower than both Snapchat and Pinterest, and 80% lower than Meta, while the 25% revenue growth is "up near Meta and Amazon ads levels."
(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)