Benzinga | Dec 2, 2021 06:26AM EST

Piper Sandler Slashes Twitter Price Target By 23%, Still Sees 26% Upside

* Piper Sandler analyst Thomas Champion lowered the price target on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) to $54 from $70, implying 26.1% upside, and reiterated a Neutral.

* The rerating follows a survey of 1,500 people in the U.S. to understand the company's usage better.

* Overall, user growth in the U.S. may be hampered by churn while advertising relevancy turned out better than expected and subscriptions "look appealing to a narrow audience," Champion tells investors in a research note.

* The survey suggests Twitter's user growth opportunity in the U.S. remains as 60% of respondents have not used the platform, says the analyst.

* However, he believes that with gross adds and churn evenly matched in the most recent period, the setup for Twitter's growth looks challenging.

* Related Content: Piper Sandler Sees Twitter Gaining From Focused, Full-Time CEO

* Price Action: TWTR shares traded higher by 1.31% at $43.38 in the premarket session on the last check Thursday.