Snap released its first quarter financial results for 2022 today, affirming that it’s growing faster than its fellow U.S.-based competitors Facebook (now Meta) and Twitter. Meta reported its first loss in daily active users (DAUs) last quarter, while Twitter’s monetizable DAUs grew by 2% in the U.S. and 15% internationally.
Snap, parent company to Snapchat, grew its DAUs 18% year over year to 332 million, but for the five previous quarters, its user growth exceeded 20%. But Snap is more concerned with its revenue, even though it increased 38% year over year to $1.06 billion. The company said it was on track to hit 44% growth since Q1 2021 but noted that after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, many advertisers paused their campaigns. Snap CFO Derek Andersen said that most advertisers resumed their campaigns within 10 days, but the disruption still had a negative impact on the company’s quarterly revenue.
“We believe the impact of the war in Ukraine on input costs, marketing budgets and overall economic competence has been significant, and that it is difficult to predict its impact on a forward-looking basis,” Andersen said on Snap’s earning call.
Snap also missed its revenue goals in Q3 2021, citing Apple’s big iOS privacy change as the cause. Once iOS users were presented with a choice to opt-out of off-app tracking, most users chose not to hand over more personal data to the apps they use, which impacted the ad business of Snapchat and Facebook. The company indicated that it’s still reckoning with this curveball form Apple when it comes to ad revenue.
When it comes to the product itself, Snap is betting big on augmented reality experiences (so is Niantic!). The company said that 250 million Snapchatters engaged with AR features on a daily basis, which is a sizable chunk of its total 332 million DAUs. This quarter, Snap has rolled out upgrades to AR shopping, as well as community-generated AR experiences for local landmarks.
Next week, Snap is hosting its annual Snap Partner Summit, and according to CEO Evan Spiegel, the company is planning to announce some new products and services at the event.
