Online stock trading platform Robinhood’s ranking in the Apple’s App Store has steadily declined over the past month. From being in the top spot among free apps in early February, now, its ranking has fallen below the top 100 now,
data from Sensor Tower shows.
Going by some of the recent reviews on Sensor Tower, many users appear to have fallen out of love with the app . One irate user stated that the “review keeps getting deleted” and wished that there was an option to “give zero stars”, and another said that the app was “manipulating the price of stocks”.
A third user asked people not to download the app because the company was apparently constantly “updating things that prevent you from withdrawing your money or buying or selling crypto”. One of the reviews also said that Robinhood had “no customer support with weird account restrictions” and gave one star to the app.
Robinhood has sustained a break below the 100 rank on the iOS app store since March 19. In Feb at height of meme stock craze was in top 20. TD Ameritrade's highs were #16 and now at #850. I'm moving risk from meme stock to institutional plays until there is a pick up in interest
The negative reviews on Sensor Tower don’t augur well for the San Francisco-based online broker. On Tuesday (March 23), the company stated that it had confidentially submitted plans to regulators
for a US initial public offering (IPO).
Robinhood has been in the line of fire of the regulator and its (Robinhood's) customer since December.
The company agreed to pay a $65 million civil penalty to settle a case with the Securities Exchange Commission charging it with deceiving customers about how the stock trading app made money and failing to deliver the promised best execution of trades.
In January, the app again found itself in the eye of a storm after it restricted its users from purchasing shares of GameStop, AMC and Nokia, which were on a tear because of short covering by hedge funds, Robinhood justified the move saying it was required to keep a substantial amount of money on hand in order to process all the trades happening through its clearinghouse.
This, however, did not cut ice with the retail investors who were barred from placing trades in those stocks. They accused Robinhood of siding with hedge funds and institutional investors, and hurting the interests of small investors, and one investor filed a lawsuit against Robinhood over this matter.
Robinhood's IPO will be highly anticipated among investors. According to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst David Ritter, the company could be worth as much as $40 billion in an IPO, based on trading in the secondary market.
