A huge sale of shares has moved closer as Snap Inc – the owner of mobile messaging service Snapchat – started a marketing campaign to convince investors to buy its shares when they go on sale in March. <br /><br /> The service is very popular with young people and Snapchat is making much of its rapidly growing number of active users and aggressive expansion plans. <br /><br /> Snap is looking to raise $3 billion (2.8 billion euros), but potential investors could be put off by its widening losses – more than half a billion dollars last year – and the fact that owners of shares will have no say in how the firm is run. <br /><br /> Existing investors will have one vote for each of their shares, while new investors will have no voting rights.<br /><br /> Snapchat files for an enormous #IPO. https://t.co/QwJ8VZjsoG— Kimberly Lancaster (@newscaster) February 3, 2017<br /> <br /><br /> This would be the biggest initial public offering of shares in a technology company since Alibaba, the Chinese internet retailer which raised $25 billion two years ago. <br /><br /> Before that the largest was Facebook, which sold $16 billion worth of shares in 2012. <br /><br /> Snapchat’s userbase is far smaller than Facebook, which also earns much more revenue per user. <br /><br /> It generates the majority of its revenue from advertising, seeking to challenge the dominance of internet giants such as Facebook and Alphabet’s Google.<br /><br /> Snapchat IPO won't spark a gold rush via axios https://t.co/gwT9wFbCp3— Dan Primack (danprimack) January 24, 2017<br /> <br /><br /> Snappy numbers<br /><br /> <br /> Daily active users averaged 158 million at the end of December 2016, up 48 percent year-on-year<br /> <br /><br /> <br /> Net loss widened to $514.6 million in 2016 from $372.9 million the year before<br /> <br /><br /> <br /> Potential total valuation – $20 billion to $25 billion<br /> <br /><br /> <br /> Sales in 2016 were $404.5 million, up from $58.7 million in 2015<br /> <br /><br /> <br /> Number of employees – 1,859, up from 600 in 2015<br /> <br /><br /> <br /> Biggest losses are ‘hosting fees’ to cloud computing companies to store its data. It will pay Google $2 billion over the next five years to use its cloud computing services.<br /> <br /><br /> the the only explanation I’ve ever seen of how to actually use snapchat is buried in its IPO filing pic.twitter.com/FKCaizd0xF— John Lagomarsino (@johlag) February 2, 2017<br />
