Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap Inc. attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., on July 9, 2025.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Snap shares were up over 2 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the Snapchat-parent released fourth-quarter earnings that beat on sales. The company also announced a $500 million stock repurchase program.
Here is how the company did compared with Wall Street’s expectations:
Earnings per share: 3 cents. That figure is not comparable to analysts’ estimates.Revenue: $1.72 billion vs. $1.70 billion expected, according to LSEG Global daily active users: 474 million vs. 478 million expected, according to StreetAccountGlobal average revenue per user (ARPU): $3.62 vs. $3.56 expected, according to StreetAccount
The social media company said first-quarter revenue will be in the range of $1.50 billion to $1.53 billion, which is below analyst estimates of $1.55 billion.
Sales in Snap’s fourth quarter rose 10% year over year, while net income was $45.2 million, which was up nearly 400% from the $9.1 million it reported a year ago.
Snap said that fourth-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, was $358 million, topping the $300 million that StreetAccount was projecting.
The company also said that its adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter will be between $170 million and $190 million. That midpoint is higher than StreetAccount’s estimates of $178 million.
Snap’s fourth-quarter global DAU dropped by 3 million quarter-over-quarter, which the company attributed to a reduction in marketing spending “in order to focus on more profitable growth,” according to a letter to investors.
Additionally, Snap said that due to Australia’s social media minimum age act, the company “implemented platform-level age verification” in that country during the fourth quarter that resulted “in the removal of approximately 400,000 accounts.”
The company said that DAU for the North American region was 94 million, lower than the 97 million that Wall Street was projecting.
“Obviously, there’s quite a bit working its way to the court system right now that would further restrict the use of Snapchat for our community,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told analysts during an earnings call about the regulatory environment. Still, he said that the company’s global ad sales stemming from users under the age of 18-year-old is “not material.”
“Looking at the revenue generating potential of the business looking forward, we’re not overly concerned about the changing regulatory environment,” Spiegel said.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel will be interviewed by CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on Thursday at 11 AM ET.
Snap said in a letter to investors that it plans to focus on growing its subscription-related offerings, like Snapchat+ and the recently debuted Memories Storage Plans. The company said overall subscribers to those services grew 71% year-over-year to 24 million in the fourth quarter.
“Certainly memory storage plans were a big driver of the subscriber growth that we’ve seen recently,” Spiegel said during the earnings call.
Last week, Snap announced that it had created a wholly owned subsidiary named Specs Inc. that will develop and market the company’s augmented reality glasses.
“We’re super excited about what’s ahead this year with the launch of Specs, and obviously graduating from the R and D phase of Specs to broader consumer adoption,” Spiegel said about the company’s upcoming AR glasses slated to debut later in the year.
Because the company’s AR glasses “appeals to a different audience segment than the core Snapchat audience,” Spiegel said it’s “going to be really important for us to develop a standalone brand identity for Specs.”
Spiegel said that while “there may be opportunities to raise additional capital” for the company’s AR glasses-related efforts in the future, Snap will need to be “balancing” the outside investment with its “own ownership interest and any potential dilution.”
WATCH: Snap CEO Evan Spiegel on AR glasses.
