Analyst Cautions On Snap As Meta And Google Benefit From Ad Spending Shifts

Benzinga
Yesterday

Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) reported first-quarter results on Tuesday and announced it would not provide second-quarter guidance.

Snap reported first-quarter revenue of $1.36 billion, up 14%, topping the Street consensus estimate of $1.35 billion.

The company reported an adjusted loss of 8 cents per share, beating a Street consensus estimate of 13 cents per share.

Also Read: Amazon, Wayfair, Pinterest Win Analyst Backing Due To Tariff Pause, Supply Chain Relief, Discretionary Spend Recovery

Multiple Wall Street analysts cut their price targets on the stock.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Brad Erickson maintained a Sector Perform rating with a price target of $12.

Canaccord Capital Markets analyst Maria Ripps maintained a Hold rating with a price target of $9, down from $10.

RBC Capital Markets: Snap’s first-quarter revenue was roughly in line with expectations, offset mainly by weakness in RoW and, to a lesser degree, Europe. The company’s DAUs were in line with the outlook and guidance. EBITDA came in materially ahead of expectations, driven by better cost discipline.

So far, in the second quarter of 2025, management notes a headwind for revenue, citing advertisers affected by the de minimis exemptions as an example. Regarding the infrastructure costs per DAU for the quarter, the company anticipates it will fall near the midpoint in the second quarter, with DAUs estimated to be around 468 million.

Investors recognize that Snap tends to lose share during moments of macro weakness, and this report will likely reinforce those views, particularly given Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google’s much more balanced tone last week (also historically consistent).

Adding to the pain, investors also walked away from the call with unanswered questions regarding how to think about the regional exposure, i.e., China-based advertisers, and whether the weakness is more from APAC or non-China advertisers with China supply chain & de minimis exposure.

Erickson is intrigued at Snap’s opportunity with Spotlight to drive engagement with accretive monetization over time, but given its platform changes are moving slowly and the platform’s tendency to underperform during softer macro periods, the analyst lacks arguments to get more constructive beyond that, the stock has come down.

Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) should be better off, given its similar level of advertiser depth, which can fill in auction holes left by the most affected advertisers.

Erickson projected second-quarter revenue of $1.31 billion.

Canaccord Capital Markets: Snap’s first-quarter results were solid relative to expectations, with MAUs eclipsing 900 million for the first time, total revenue coming in modestly above consensus, and profitability solidly above guidance.

Consistent with the past two quarters, advertising revenue growth decelerated slightly but increased ~9%, with DR revenue maintaining mid-teens growth and comprising 75% of total advertising revenue for the first time. Total active advertisers increased by 60% in the first quarter, reflecting efforts to onboard more SMBs onto the platform, and Snap is increasingly focused on ramping spend from medium-sized advertisers.

Other revenue delivered another quarter of robust growth thanks to Snapchat+, now at a $600 million revenue run rate.

Snap expects stable trends going forward. Global time spent watching content grew in the first quarter, reflecting continued investment in AI models to support better content ranking and personalization.

These new models can integrate new trends and user interaction signals at double the pace of prior models, which helped the number of views on Spotlight posts. For My AI, improvements to responsiveness drove a 55% increase in the number of My AI DAUs in the US.

Given macro-related uncertainty, Snap did not provide formal second-quarter financial guidance. Management noted that it has seen headwinds to start the quarter as the cohort of advertisers impacted by changes to the de minimis exemption has curtailed spending. The company did indicate that it was still growing quarter-to-date.

Price Action: SNAP stock closed lower by 1.63% to $7.83 on Thursday.

Read Next:

  • Meta Wants To Leverage TikTok Ban Threat to Promote Instagram On Other Social Media, Offers Cash Deals

Photo by Poetra.RH via Shutterstock

Latest Ratings for SNAP

Date Firm Action From To
Mar 2022 Deutsche Bank Initiates Coverage On Buy
Mar 2022 Benchmark Initiates Coverage On Buy
Feb 2022 Credit Suisse Maintains Outperform

View More Analyst Ratings for SNAP

View the Latest Analyst Ratings

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