UPDATED 20:31 EDT / OCTOBER 21 2021

APPS

Snap shares plunge as it blames Apple for weaker-than-expected earnings

Shares in Snap Inc. plunged in after-hours trading today after the social media company blamed Apple Inc. for missing expectations in its third-quarter earnings report.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Snap reported revenue of $1.067 billion versus analysts’ forecast of $1.1 billion. The average revenue per user came in at $3.49, lower than the $3.67 that was expected.

The figures were not all bad for Snap. As well as being the first quarter in which the company has surpassed $1 billion in revenue, adjusted earnings were stronger than expected. Snap reported a net loss of $72 million in the quarter, an improvement of 64% year-over-year, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization came in at $175 million, up 209% over the same quarter in 2020.

Adjusted earnings per share were reported at 17 cents compared with a penny in the third quarter of 2020. Analysts had been predicting eight cents per share. In the quarter, Snap’s global daily active users count came in at 306 million, up 23% from a year ago, versus 301.8 million expected by analysts.

Highlights in the quarter included a release of the next generation of Scan, an augmented reality experience from Snap that enhances physical objects. The company also released five new augmented reality Lenses driven by SnapML that have generated more than 1 billion impressions each and achieved 11 billion impressions in total.

“While we anticipated some degree of business disruption, the new Apple-provided measurement solution did not scale as we had expected, making it more difficult for our advertising partners to measure and manage their ad campaigns for iOS,” Snap Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said in a prepared statement.

Slightly more upbeat, Spiegel notes in the earnings release that “we’re now operating at the scale necessary to navigate significant headwinds, including changes to the iOS platform that impact the way advertising is targeted, measured, and optimized, as well as global supply chain issues and labor shortages impacting our partners.”

Snap is predicting revenue of between $1.165 billion and $1.205 billion in the fourth quarter and an adjusted profit of $135 million to $175 million. The revenue guidance is below analysts’ predictions that Snap would bring in $1.36 billion in the year’s final quarter.

Between missing the beat on both quarterly earnings and the coming quarter, investors were not happy with Snap’s numbers. Shares dropped as much as 25% after the bell before settling in about 21% down.

Photo: Unsplash

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