Report: Snapchat Loss 'Nearly Quadruples', 'User Growth Slow'

Snap Inc., the parent company to Snapchat, has reported that its quarterly loss “nearly quadrupled,” as user growth and revenue growth have started to slow.

“The parent company of messaging app Snapchat said Thursday that revenue more than doubled in the second quarter to $182 million from $71.8 million a year earlier,” reported the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. “Yet that growth rate was about half what it was in the first quarter, and slower than investors expected for a company that says it still has ample room to grow. Snap’s second-quarter loss ballooned to $443 million from $116 million a year earlier.”

Snapchat’s number of daily users is currently at around 173 million, compared to Facebook’s reported 1.3 billion, prompting Snap’s stock to trade down 17 percent “in after-hours trading, hitting new lows.”

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bryan Wiener, the chairman of advertising agency 360i, claimed, “Snap has gone from industry darling to troubled child overnight.”

Despite this, Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel boasted that the company has “made a lot of great progress this quarter,” describing user growth as “solid,” and pointing out that Snap was “still in the very early stages” of monetization.