CSCO - Agora COO Leaves But No One Cares. Does That Point To Bigger Problems? | Benzinga
Key Takeaways:
- Agora said its COO will leave the company less than three years after joining, as it tries to stabilize its business after nearly two years of revenue contraction
- The company said the recent rapid takeoff of AI could give rise to a new generation of apps using its real-time engagement technology
By Doug Young
What does it mean when one of your top executives leaves and nobody cares?
Probably that the executive was inconsequential to the company and thus nothing has changed with his departure, in a best-case scenario. Or at worst, it could also signal that investors are already so cold on your stock that a big executive change fails to register on their radar.
Either of those could be the case for the lack of reaction after Agora Inc. (NASDAQ: API) announced the departure of Stanley Wei as its COO and chief strategy officer late last week. The stock was virtually unchanged in the two trading days afterwards. That could be partly because Wei only joined Agora in early 2021, and came from a financial background that doesn’t seem to crucial to the company’s key products providing real-time audio and video engagement services for online apps.
But reaction was far more negative just a couple of weeks earlier when Agora announced its latest quarterly results, which showed its revenue contracted for a seventh consecutive quarter in the three months to September. The company separately breaks out revenue for its China business, known as Shengwang, as well as for its international business, which uses the Agora name.
Contraction has haunted Agora’s China business for nearly two years now, the result of Beijing’s 2021 crackdown on private tutoring companies that were once some of its biggest customers. But the international business continued to grow – until the second quarter of this year, that is. Revenue from that business fell 5.6% year-on-year in the three months to June, and the decline rate accelerated to 8.9% in the third quarter, according to Agora’s latest results released on Nov 21.
The falling international ...