Amid struggles in a highly saturated market and earnings misses, Bumble Inc. (NASDAQ:BMBL) has seen a steep drop in share price since its 2021 initial public offering. However, an analyst has raised the company's rating after seeing encouraging signs that surpass Wall Street forecasts.
The Bumble Analyst: Bank of America analyst Curtis Nagle upgraded Bumble from Neutral to Buy and maintained a $14 price target.
The Bumble Takeaways: "We are upgrading Bumble (BMBL) to Buy as we are more confident now that Bumble can meet or exceed Street expectations which we believe will drive multiple expansion," Nagle said in a Friday note. Nagle cited the introduction of several new products and initiatives as accelerators of user growth.
Last week, Bumble shed its prominent feature of female users making the first move in a match, launching the "Opening Move" feature, which allows women to pass the buck. While only released recently, 50% of new users opted to use the feature, according to Nagle. "We see opening move as an important step in further expanding the appeal of Bumble," the analyst said.
Nagle sees other new features as drivers of monetization for Bumble, including the proliferation of AI-assisted profile generation tools and the release of safety and trust tools to come later this year.
In addition, Nagle sees Bumble's new marketing campaign as promising. Amid the app's relaunch, Bumble has enlisted university students as brand ambassadors along with clever advertising messaging. "Brand marketing plays to Bumble's strengths and we believe the new campaign resonate with daters," Nagle noted.
BMBL Price Action: Shares of Bumble have fallen 0.3% to $11.48 at the time of publication on Friday.
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