Snap Stock Gets a Boost From Revenue Growth, Buyback Plan

Key Takeaways

• Snap beats profit and sales estimates as users embrace its artificial intelligence and augmented reality technology.
• Average daily active users, average revenue per user, and ad revenue all exceeded forecasts.
• Snap announced a $500 million share buyback.

Shares of Snap (SNAP) jumped Wednesday after the social media company posted better-than-anticipated results and announced a stock buyback.

The owner of the Snapchat photo and video sharing app reported third quarter non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.08, with revenue advancing more than 15% to $1.37 billion. Both exceeded estimates. (On a GAAP basis, the company reported a loss.) The stock was recently up about 13%.

Average daily active users increased by 1 million from last year to 11 million, while average revenue per user was up $0.24 to $3.10. Advertising revenue climbed 9.3% to $1.25 billion. All those figures were also more than expected.

CEO Evan Speigel said that Snap’s investments in AI and AR “are powering new creative experiences for our community and driving innovation across our advertising platform, underpinning our longterm growth opportunity.”

The company said the board has approved an up to $500 million share repurchase plan set to run for 12 months.

Despite today’s gains, shares of Snap have lost roughly a quarter of their value this year.

Among other social stocks, Reddit (RDDT) also reported results last night, while Meta Platforms' (META) numbers are due after today's closing ball.

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