Snapchat fails to meet revenue expectations in latest earnings

1 Feb 2023

Image: © prima91/Stock.adobe.com

Snap reported gaining 56m daily active users over the past year, bringing the total figure to 375m.

Snap, the parent company of social media app Snapchat, has slightly underperformed on revenue and failed to reach its expected global daily active users.

In its latest earnings published yesterday (31 January), Snap reported a revenue of $1.3bn in the fourth quarter – up from $1.29bn a year prior. However, this was below the expected $1.31bn according to Refinitiv.

Snapchat’s global daily active users now stands at 375m, which marks a 17pc increase over the same period last year – indicating a gain of 56m users in the span of a year. There was positive growth in all the platform’s markets, including North America, Europe and the rest of the world.

While this was the third consecutive earnings report after which investors were disappointed and shares fell, chief executive Evan Spiegel was a little more optimistic.

“We ended a challenging 2022 with 375m daily active users, 12pc year-over-year annual revenue growth and positive full year free cash flow,” Spiegel said.

“We continue to face significant headwinds as we look to accelerate revenue growth, and we are making progress driving improved return on investment for advertisers and innovating to deepen the engagement of our community.”

Snap’s latest performance can be attributed to a generally slowing economy that has crunched into tech profits and a turbulent digital ad industry adversely affected by rising costs.

Platforms have also been impacted by Apple’s changes to its privacy settings on iOS devices, which allow users to prevent apps from collecting their data for targeted advertising.

While Snap said it won’t provide guidance for the next quarter, the company wrote in its investor letter that its “internal forecast” assumes a decline of between 2pc and 10pc from a year earlier.

“On the monetisation side, we anticipate that the operating environment will remain challenging, as we expect the headwinds we have faced over the past year to persist throughout Q1,” the company said in the letter.

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Vish Gain is a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com