Canoo Has Limited Upside After Recent Strategic Changes

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Electric van startup Canoo (NASDAQ:GOEV) stock has had a rough few months at the stock market.

A magnifying lens over the Canoo company website GOEV stock
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GOEV stock shed over 30% of its value amidst uncertainties concerning its financial flexibility and lost revenues from terminated engineering contracts. It’s burning over $75 million a quarter, and with its massive capital expenditure requirements, shareholder dilution is almost a given.

GOEV stock will continue to move lower until there’s more clarity about its future outlook.

The past few months have been quite tumultuous for Canoo. In April, it unexpectedly lost its CEO and founder in Ulrich Kranz. Consequently, a new leadership team took over and announced key changes to the company’s business strategy. Moreover, the company lost out on its only revenue-generating contract with automobile giant Hyundai (OTCMKTS:HYMTF).

It now needs to find some short-term revenue streams to avoid major liquidity problems. All in all, it’s a rocky road ahead for the EV startup.

Major Strategic Changes

In Late April, Canoo’s CEO Ulrich Kranz resigned from his post along with the company’s CFO Paul Balciunas. The reasons for their resignations were unclear, but what followed has certainly left Canoo’s early investors fuming.

The new leadership announced some fundamental changes to the company’s business strategy. Foremost, it wouldn’t be pursuing the contract engineering end of its business anymore. The leadership team feels the company must protect its intellectual property, compromised as part of the licensing agreements.

This is incredibly concerning because Canoo had planned to generate over $500 million in sales by 2025 from its contract manufacturing segment. It is disconcerting why the management has made a complete U-turn on its decision when it shouldn’t have provided such inflated numbers leading up to the SPAC deal. Investors felt it was a key differentiator for the company against its competition.

Furthermore, the management also announced some key changes to Canoo’s subscription model. The model is now optional and will now form a small part of the company’s revenues going forward. A lot was made of its subscription model, which could have been a major growth catalyst in the future. However, all that has changed as there is a significant shift in the company’s policy which aims to reduce IP leakages as much as possible. The company has forecasted subscription revenues to reach $2 billion by 2026.

Relevancy To Millennials

Canoo aims to become an EV maker which effectively caters to millennial tastes. It aims to provide the upbeat, non-committal, fearless, and exploratory millennial with an EV that matches its identity. However, it’s tough to say whether they were looking for the bizarrely shaped lifestyle EVs that Canoo is producing.

There has been a lot of talk over the millennials and their exploratory lifestyle. The reality is quite different, though, as today’s younger generation tends to be more indoors than the prior generations. This notion is supported by a study conducted by Yale Environment 360, which showed that adults and children had lost a connection with nature. People in the country tend to spend less time outdoors than they did in the past.

The non-committal lifestyle of millennials is perhaps a more believable assertion, though. However, Canoo’s lack of emphasis on its subscription model shows that it has lost the plot here.

Final Word On GOEV Stock

If you’d invested in Canoo before April, you’d probably have a lot of good things to say about the company. However, after its strategic change, the risks have multiplied exponentially with GOEV stock.

Its relevancy with its target market is under the scanner, which raises concerns about its long-term positioning. The key changes to its business model are puzzling and are likely to weigh in on its stock price for the foreseeable future.

On the date of publication, Muslim Farooque did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Muslim Farooque is a keen investor and an optimist at heart. A life-long gamer and tech enthusiast, he has a particular affinity for analyzing technology stocks. Muslim holds a bachelor’s of science degree in applied accounting from Oxford Brookes University.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2021/09/goev-stock-has-limited-upside-after-recent-strategic-changes/.

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