Meta is trouncing Snap in Digital ads — here’s why
In this screengrab, CEO of Snap Inc. Evan Spiegel takes the stage at the virtual Snap Partner Summit 2021 on May 20, 2021 in Los Angeles.
Snap Partner Summit 2021 – Snap Inc | Getty Images
The online ad market is bouncing back. But the spoils are not being evenly shared.
After Meta blew away Wall Street estimates last week in its fourth-quarter earnings report, pushing the stock to a record, smaller rival Snap came up short on Tuesday, sending investors rushing for the exits.
Meta’s ad business, which includes Facebook and Instagram, grew 24% from a year earlier, lifting the company to its fastest rate of expansion since mid-2021. Snap reported an increase of just 5% year-over-year, its sixth straight quarter of single-digit growth or a decline in sales. That’s slower than advertising growth at Google, Amazon and Microsoft in addition to Meta.
Based on investors’ reactions, Snap is headed for one of its worst days on the market since its debut seven years ago. The stock dropped 33% in extended trading to $11.75. Its two biggest one-day declines were a 43% drop in May 2022 and a 39% plunge two months later.
Meta, by contrast, soared 20% on Friday after the company reported a tripling in profit, beat estimates on the top and bottom lines, issued an optimistic forecast and announced that it’s paying a dividend for the first time.
“We’re seeing the bigger companies get bigger and smaller companies are slower to rebound,” said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Snap is one of those” in the latter camp, she said.
For the first quarter, Snap projected revenue of $1.095 billion to $1.135 billion, which would equal growth of between about 11% and 15%. The middle of the range — $1.115 billion — was just below analysts’ average estimate of $1.117 billion.
Broadly, the digital ad market is recovering from a brutal 2022, when soaring inflation and rising interest rates led brands to reel in spending. Now ad platforms are seeing improvements from a more stable economy along with upcoming events like the 2024 Olympics in Paris and the the presidential election later this year.
As Enberg noted, “the rebound has been uneven” and has benefited Meta and other giant tech companies like Alphabet and Amazon, which all reported advertising growth in the double digits for the fourth quarter.
On Snap’s earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Evan Spiegel faced questions from analysts about why the company is lagging behind competitors.
Rich Greenfield of LightShed Partners asked Spiegel if Snap’s smaller size compared to Meta represents “a fundamental long-term issue.” Spiegel responded by saying that Snap is “certainly one of the largest Internet services,” and while some platforms are bigger, “I think there’s enormous opportunity for us to continue to grow our business.”
Barclays analyst Ross Sandler asked Spiegel, “Why aren’t we seeing more progress and getting that growth rate up to the levels of the broader digital ad industry?”
‘Wish we were moving faster’
Spiegel started the answer by discussing his excitement around “the progress we’re seeing especially in our lower funnel business,” referring to the upgraded capabilities of its online advertising platform.
However, he acknowledged some level of disappointment.
“Obviously we wish we were moving faster,” Spiegel said. “But we’re working as hard as we can and you know we’re pleased by what we’re seeing in the direct-response business.”
Both Meta and Snap were hit hard in 2022 due to a weakening ad market and Apple’s iOS privacy update, which made it harder for social media companies to target users. Both companies said they were rebuilding their ad technology in response and told investors that they were pouring money into artificial intelligence.
UKRAINE – 2023/03/11: In this photo illustration, Temu, LLC logo seen on a smartphone and on a pc screen. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Meta is seeing the benefits, sparked by a surge in spending from Chinese retailers, which are trying to reach the company’s billions of users spread across the globe. Meta has 2.11 billion daily active users, compared with 414 million for Snap.
Spiegel echoed commentary from prior quarters and said Snap is “investing heavily” into machine learning and AI technologies to enhance its online ad platform.
Enberg told CNBC that, based on feedback she’s heard from advertisers, Meta is further ahead in its development. And the company’s size provides an inherent advantage.
“Meta’s platforms are much bigger than Snapchat, meaning that they have more data and users to work with as they’re rebuilding it,” Enberg said. “Snap has clearly made progress, and we saw some of that in its earnings, both this quarter and last quarter, but it seems to be taking a longer time for the company.”
Snap has recently tried to distance itself from the broader social media universe and has pitched itself as more of a messaging company, Enberg said. The company disclosed sales in its Snapchat+ subscription service for the first time and said it had an annualized revenue run rate of $249 million in 2023. The service now has 7 million subscribers, up from 5 million in the previous quarter. Snap debuted the product in 2022 for $3.99 a month.
But revenue from subscriptions is currently minimal. Advertising is still what matters, and “the reality is that it’s competing for the same social dollars,” Enberg said.
“I think the confidence level from investors in Snap is concerning going forward,” she said.
WATCH: Meta is too optimistic on revenue and cost growth in 2024.
Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Technology
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports
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