Snap Doesn’t Provide Outlook, But Will Cut Costs Due to Economic ‘Uncertainty.

Key Takeaways

• Snap blames future "uncertainty" for deciding not to provide current-quarter guidance.
• Snapchat’s operator also plans to reduce its spending on operations and stock-based compensation.
• The first-quarter revenue and net loss results were better than expected.

Snap (SNAP), the social media giant, dropped 16% in its shares Wednesday. The company had said it would not be able to provide a forecast for the current quarter or any plans to reduce costs because of the “uncertainty of the future”.

The Snapchat operator wrote in a letter to investors that because it's not clear "how macro economic conditions may evolve in the months ahead, and how this may impact advertising demand more broadly, we do not intend to share formal financial guidance for Q2."

The company explained that even though revenue continued to increase, "we have experienced headwinds to start the current quarter, and we believe it is prudent to continue to balance our level of investment with realized revenue growth."

Snap has lowered its expectations for adjusted operating costs of $2.65 billion – $2.70billion from its previous estimate between $2.70billion – $2.75billion. Snap also expects to pay $1.13 billion – $1.16 billion in stock compensation by 2025, down from its previous forecast of between $1.15 billion and $1.20 billion.

Q1 Results Top Estimates

The warning offset better-than-anticipated first-quarter results. The company reported that it had a net loss per share of $0.08, on revenue which increased 14% from the previous year to $1.36 billion. Visible Alpha’s analysts expected a loss of $0.05 per share on revenue of $1.35billion.

Evan Spiegel, CEO at Snap, said that Snap has now surpassed 900,000,000 monthly users (MAU). He added that the revenue spike was due to the “progress we have made in our direct-response marketing solutions, our continued momentum driving performance for small businesses, and our Snapchat+ subscription service.”

Snap shares have declined by nearly 30% since 2025.