Snap shares jumped in extended trading Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.
Here is how the company did compared with Wall Street’s expectations:
Earnings per share: 16 cents adjusted vs. 14 cents expected, according to LSEG
Revenue: $1.56 billion vs. $1.55 billion expected, according to LSEG
Global daily active users: 453 million vs. 451.1 million expected, according to StreetAccount
Global average revenue per user: $3.44 vs. $3.44 expected, according to StreetAccount
Revenue for the fourth quarter increased 14% from $1.36 billion a year earlier. Net income in the quarter was $9.1 million, or a penny a share. In the prior year, Snap recorded a fourth-quarter net loss of $248 million, or 15 cents a share.
Snap said it expects first-quarter revenue to come in between $1.325 billion and $1.36 billion. The midpoint of that range is $1.34 billion, higher than Wall Street projections of $1.33 billion.
However, Snap’s first-quarter adjusted earnings will fall in the range of $40 million to $75 million, below analyst expectations of $78.5 million. In an investor letter, Snap attributed the guidance to “investment plans for the quarter ahead.”
First-quarter adjusted operating expenses will grow in the range of 11% to 12% year over year due to hiring, legal-related costs, and “a seasonal shift of marketing expenses into Q1 relative to the prior year,” Snap said.
“As we look ahead to 2025, we see additional opportunities to invest productively in scaling our business given the foundational improvements we have made to our ad platform and the momentum we have established in our go to market initiatives,” particularly in the segment focused on small and medium-sized businesses, Snap said in the letter. “Our investment plans for 2025 reflect this optimism, alongside a strong commitment to make further financial progress towards profitability as we scale.”
Additionally, the company said it committed $5 million to “support communities and team members” affected by the recent Los Angeles wildfires and that it anticipates making “further commitments over time.”
In September, the New Mexico attorney general filed a lawsuit against Snap that alleged the company’s Snapchat app’s design and recommendation systems “openly foster and promote illicit sexual material involving children and facilitate sextortion and the trafficking of children, drugs, and guns.” Earlier in January, Snap shares dropped after the Federal Trade Commission said it would refer a complaint against the company related to its My AI chatbot to the Department of Justice.
Last week, Meta reported fourth-quarter results that beat on revenue and earnings and reiterated its plans to spend heavily on AI-related investments. Alphabet on Tuesday beat on earnings but missed on revenue. Pinterest reports earnings Thursday followed by Reddit next week.
Snap said daily active users for the first quarter will be 459 million, topping analyst expectations of 458.3 million.
The company said its Snapchat+ service now has 14 million subscribers, up from the 12 million it reported during the third quarter. The service, which debuted in 2022, makes up the bulk of what Snap calls “other revenue.” That unit grew 131% year over year in 2024 and has an “annualized revenue run rate of well over $500 million,” the company said.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a Tuesday call with analysts that he’s pleased with the user response to Snapchat+ and the company may consider raising its subscription price, which currently costs $3.99 a month.
Spiegel also commented about China-based DeepSeek’s breakthrough AI model that was allegedly cheaper and quicker to build and operate compared to other similar software from tech giants like Meta, Alphabet and OpenAI. DeepSeek’s AI model shows that “Capital is not a long-term moat in the technology business,” Spiegel said.
“It’s been really inspiring to see the innovation there,” Spiegel said. “I think it validates our view that a lot of these models are going to continue to be commoditized over time, more efficient to run.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts last week that his company was still digesting some of DeepSeek’s capabilities, but added that it’s “probably too early to really have a strong opinion on what this means for the trajectory around infrastructure and CapEx,” suggesting that Meta won’t slash its AI spending anytime soon.
Regarding whether Snap has seen any impact from TikTok’s potential ban in the U.S., Spiegel said “The overall environment of uncertainty is benefiting our business.” He said that both advertisers and creators are looking to “diversify” the social platforms they rely on, and Snap is helping them with their planning.
Snap said Ajit Mohan will become chief business officer after previously serving as president of the Asia-Pacific region. Before joining Snap in 2023, Mohan was the vice president and managing director of India at Meta.
FILE PHOTO: Spencer Rascoff, co-founder and executive chairman of dot.LA, speaks during the Montgomery Summit in Santa Monica, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 4, 2020.
Rascoff, who has served as a member of the online dating company’s board since March 2024, will replace Bernard Kim in the role, Match said.
“During his time on the Board, Spencer has demonstrated a strong strategic perspective and deep understanding of Match Group’s brands and opportunities,” said Match Group Chairman Tom McInerney, in a statement. “We are confident in his ability to drive the company’s next phase of innovation and growth.”
Along with the leadership change, Match announced better-than-expected fourth-quarter results but lackluster guidance. Match posted earnings per share of 59 cents on $860 million in revenue. That topped the 54 cents per share in earnings and $859 million in revenue expected by analysts polled by LSEG.
However, the parent of Tinder and Hinge issued disappointing revenue guidance for the first quarter. The company forecast sales of $820 million to $830 million for the quarter, falling short of the $853 million estimate from LSEG.
The shares sank 7% in extended trading after the report.
Rascoff, 49, is best known for his role at Zillow. He co-founded the real estate technology company nearly two decades ago and served in various roles, including CEO, before departing in 2019. The Harvard University graduate also founded online travel website Hotwire, which Expedia bought for nearly $700 million in 2003.
Match was fully spun out of Barry Diller’sIAC Group in 2020, but has had a tough run as an independent public company. Its market cap was about $30 billion at the time of the transaction and has since shrunk below $10 billion, reflecting a dramatic slowdown in revenue growth.
Last month, IAC said its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement market place the company acquired in 2017.
Advanced Micro Devices reported fourth-quarter results on Tuesday that beat Wall Street expectations for sales and earnings, but the stock fell about 6% in extended trading as the company missed estimates in its key data center segment.
Here’s how the chipmaker did, versus LSEG consensus estimates for the quarter ended Dec. 28:
Earnings per share: $1.09, adjusted, versus $1.08 expected
Revenue: $7.66 billion versus $7.53 billion
AMD said it expects $7.1 billion in sales in the first quarter, plus or minus $300 million. It projected its gross margin to be about 54%. Analysts expected AMD to guide for revenue of $7 billion.
AMD reported $482 million in net income, or 29 cents per share, for the fourth quarter, down from $667 million, or 41 cents per share in the year-ago period.The company’s adjusted earnings per share excluded items such as acquisition costs, inventory loss at contract manufacturers, and restructuring charges.
Su told investors on an earnings call that AMD believes it will report “strong double-digit percentage revenue and EPS growth” in 2025.
The company’s most important unit is its business selling chips for data centers, which has been growing in recent quarters, thanks to demand for its graphics processing units for artificial intelligence.
AMD reported $3.86 billion in data center sales, which was up 69% on a year-over-year basis. The company said the increase was due to sales both in its Instinct GPUs and its EPYC CPUs, which compete with Intel’s processors.
However, analysts polled by FactSet were predicting $4.14 billion in data center sales during the quarter.
For the full year, AMD’s data center division revenue increased 94% to $12.6 billion. AMD said that $5 billion of those sales were from its Instinct GPUs for AI.
While AMD is far behind market leader Nvidia, it’s released competitive data center GPUs in recent years such as the MI300X, that some big infrastructure buyers, including Meta and Amazon, have embraced.
“We believe this places AMD on a steep long-term growth trajectory, led by the rapid scaling of our data center AI franchise from more than $5 billion of revenue in 2024 to tens of billions of dollars of annual revenue over the coming years,” Su said on the earnings call with analysts.
AMD categorizes its chips for PCs, laptops, and other individual computers as client revenue, which increased 58% on an annual basis to $2.3 billion. AMD said both its chips for desktops as well as mobile computers such as laptops are seeing strong demand.
AMD is also the second-largest producer of GPUs for gaming, behind Nvidia. Revenue in the segment declined 59% to $563 million. The company’s other small division, embedded chips, reported $923 million in sales, down 13% year-over-year.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet Inc., speaks at the inaugural 2024 Business, Government and Society Forum at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in Stanford, California, on April 3, 2024.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is planning another big year of spending as it continues to build out its artificial intelligence offering.
“We are confident about the opportunities ahead, and to accelerate our progress, we expect to invest approximately $75 billion in capital expenditures in 2025,” Pichai said in Tuesday’s earnings release announcing the investment plan.
The capex figure came in ahead of the $59.73 billion consensus estimate for Google, according to Visible Alpha.
On its earnings call, Alphabet said it expects $16 billion to $18 billion of those expenses to come in the first quarter. Overall, the expenditures will go toward “technical infrastructure, primarily for servers, followed by data centers and networking,” finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said.
Alphabet’s announcement came alongside a mixed fourth-quarter earnings report. Shares fell 8% after the company topped Wall Street’s earnings estimates by 2 cents per share, but fell short on revenue expectations.
Alphabet and its megacap tech rivals are rushing to build out their data centers with next-generation AI infrastructure, packed with Nvidia’s graphics processing units, or GPUs. Last month, Meta said it plans to invest $60 billion to $65 billion this year as part of its AI push. Microsoft has committed to $80 billion in AI-related capital expenditures in its current fiscal year.
The recent rise of China’s DeepSeek open-source models has led to some concerns about whether companies need to invest as heavily in their buildouts. Those fears rocked financial markets early last week, spurring a sell-off that contributed to the worst one-day market value loss for a company in history.
Many technology CEOs have called attention to the Chinese startup and its implications for U.S.-based tools. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said DeepSeek is showing “real innovations,” while Palantir CEO Alex Karp told CNBC last week that competing AI models means the U.S. needs an “all-country effort” to develop the technology faster.
In addition to infrastructure purchases, Alphabet said it expects headcount growth in 2025 “in key investment areas such as AI and cloud.”