AGL 40.20 Decreased By ▼ -1.30 (-3.13%)
AIRLINK 129.11 Increased By ▲ 1.11 (0.87%)
BOP 6.60 Increased By ▲ 0.34 (5.43%)
CNERGY 4.03 Decreased By ▼ -0.10 (-2.42%)
DCL 8.45 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.12%)
DFML 41.25 Increased By ▲ 0.56 (1.38%)
DGKC 87.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.90 (-1.02%)
FCCL 33.35 Decreased By ▼ -0.75 (-2.2%)
FFBL 65.90 Decreased By ▼ -0.43 (-0.65%)
FFL 10.54 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-0.19%)
HUBC 110.70 Increased By ▲ 2.00 (1.84%)
HUMNL 15.23 Increased By ▲ 0.77 (5.33%)
KEL 4.78 Increased By ▲ 0.13 (2.8%)
KOSM 7.83 Increased By ▲ 0.50 (6.82%)
MLCF 41.90 Decreased By ▼ -0.82 (-1.92%)
NBP 60.50 Decreased By ▼ -0.34 (-0.56%)
OGDC 182.80 Increased By ▲ 3.83 (2.14%)
PAEL 25.36 Decreased By ▼ -0.34 (-1.32%)
PIBTL 6.26 Increased By ▲ 0.20 (3.3%)
PPL 147.81 Increased By ▲ 1.66 (1.14%)
PRL 24.56 Decreased By ▼ -0.35 (-1.41%)
PTC 16.24 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (0.62%)
SEARL 70.50 Increased By ▲ 0.30 (0.43%)
TELE 7.30 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (1.11%)
TOMCL 36.30 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (0.28%)
TPLP 7.85 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.13%)
TREET 15.30 Decreased By ▼ -0.29 (-1.86%)
TRG 51.70 Increased By ▲ 1.34 (2.66%)
UNITY 27.35 Increased By ▲ 0.45 (1.67%)
WTL 1.23 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.81%)
BR100 9,842 Increased By 47.4 (0.48%)
BR30 30,036 Increased By 389.6 (1.31%)
KSE100 92,520 Increased By 499.1 (0.54%)
KSE30 28,786 Increased By 121.7 (0.42%)

SAN FRANCISCO: Snapchat's owner plans to "substantially" slow recruitment after bleak results Thursday wiped 25 percent off the stock price of the tech firm, which is facing difficulties on several fronts.

Snap reported that its loss in the recently ended quarter nearly tripled to $422 million despite revenue increasing 13 percent under conditions "more challenging" than expected.

A hit with young internet users in its early days, ephemeral messaging app Snapchat has remained a small player in the social networking space as competition has grown ever more intense.

"We are not satisfied with the results we are delivering, regardless of the current headwinds," California-based Snap said in a letter to investors.

The firm pointed to a punishing confluence of increased competition, slowing growth of its revenue, "upended" advertising industry standards and macroeconomic woes.

Snap share price was around $12 in after-hours trading in the wake of the earnings report.

"Competition -- whether it's with TikTok or any of the other very large, sophisticated players in the space -- has only intensified," Snap chief financial officer Derek Andersen said on an earnings call.

"So it's hard to disentangle the numerous factors here impacting what's clearly a headwind-driven deceleration in our business," he added.

The number of people using Snapchat daily grew 18 percent to 347 million from the same quarter a year ago, Snap reported.

Rattled and uncertain of its future, Twitter stumbles on

Snap last month launched a subscription version of Snapchat as it looks to generate more money from the image-centric, ephemeral messaging app.

Trouble on multiple fronts

Snapchat+ is priced at $4 a month and will provide access to exclusive features. It said that these would include priority tech support and early access to experimental features.

The subscription version of the service made its debut in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, Snap said.

Snap in February reported its first quarterly profit, but two months later warned that it saw the economic outlook as having darkened considerably.

"It's clear that the challenging economic environment continues to put pressure on Snap's business," said Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg.

"Snap is also still reeling from the impact of Apple's privacy changes, which have disproportionately impacted performance advertisers, creating a one-two-punch to its entire ad business."

Apple rocked the digital advertising landscape by tightening privacy controls in the software powering its iPhones, letting users curb the tracking data used to target ads.

Snap is a small player in the online ad market, accounting for less than one percent of the money spent worldwide, which makes it more susceptible to such changes and challenges than internet giants such as Facebook-parent Meta, Enberg said.

"It can be difficult to attribute deceleration to any one factor," Andersen said. "But in order to keep growing, we've got to stay focused on the inputs that we control."

Snap a while back recast itself as a "camera company," fielding offerings such as picture-taking glasses called Spectacles.

"Long-term the most exciting opportunity is (augmented reality) and we're investing heavily around the future of AR," Andersen said.

Meanwhile, the battle for people's attention online grows increasingly fierce as established titans such as Meta and Google adapt offerings to changing trends and relative newcomers such as TikTok grab the spotlight.

"We intend to substantially slow our rate of hiring to effectively pause growth in our headcount, which is a significant portion of our office," he added.

Comments

Comments are closed.