Snap shares jump 10% on profit beat, stock buyback
The head of Snapchat operator Snap, Evan Spiegel, presents the new generation of Spectacles in Los Angeles on Sept. 17, 2024.
Andrej Sokolow | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Snap reported better-than-expected third-quarter results on Tuesday but issued light fourth-quarter guidance. The stock jumped more than 10% in extended trading.
Here is how the company did:
- Earnings per share: 8 cents adjusted vs. 5 cents expected, according to LSEG
- Revenue: $1.37 billion vs. $1.36 billion expected, according to LSEG
- Global daily active users: 443 million vs. 441 million expected, according to StreetAccount
- Global average revenue per user: $3.10 vs. $3.09 expected, according to StreetAccount
Sales jumped 15% from a year earlier in the third quarter, while Snap’s net loss narrowed to $153 million from $368 million a year prior.
Fourth-quarter sales will be between $1.51 billion and $1.56 billion. The midpoint of its guidance is $1.54 billion, which is below the average analyst estimate of $1.56 billion. Snap said its adjusted earnings for the fourth quarter will be between $210 million and $260 million. The middle of the range is higher than analysts’ estimates of $230.7 million.
Snap also announced a $500 million stock repurchase program.
The number of Snapchat+ paying subscribers is now at 12 million, the company said. That is up from the 11 million it reported in August. The company debuted its subscription service in 2022, pitching it as a way for users to experience exclusive and prerelease features for $3.99 a month.
“Our investments in AI and AR are powering new creative experiences for our community and driving innovation across our advertising platform, underpinning our long term growth opportunity,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a statement.
In September, Snap debuted the fifth generation of its Spectacles augmented reality glasses that people can wear to see digital imagery spliced into the physical world. The new Spectacles are only available to developers who must pay $99 a month for one year if they want to build AR apps for the glasses.
Shortly after Snap announced the new Spectacles, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed his company’s experimental AR glasses called Orion. Meta’s Orion AR glasses have generated enthusiasm from employees and the company plans to attract developers next year in prelude for an eventual consumer launch.
In a letter to investors, Snap discussed the importance developers play for the company’s Spectacles and AR initiatives.
“We aspire to be the most developer-friendly platform in the world, and we are excited to offer our new generation of Spectacles to developers as an invitation and inspiration to create new experiences,” Snap said in the letter.
Prior to the after-hours pop, Snap shares were down 36% for the year compared to the Nasdaq’s 25% gain.
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In the weeks leading up to Nvidia’s third-quarter earnings report, investors debated whether the markets were in an AI bubble, fretting over the massive sums being committed to building data centers and whether they could provide a long-term return on investment.
During Wednesday’s earnings call with analysts, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang began his comments by rejecting that premise.
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” Huang said. “From our vantage point we see something very different.”
In many respects, Huang’s remarks are to be expected. He’s leading the company at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom, and has built its market cap to $4.5 trillion because of soaring demand for Nvidia’s graphics processing units.
Huang’s smackdown of bubble talk matters because Nvidia counts every major cloud provider — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle — as a customer. Most of the major AI model developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Meta, are also big buyers of Nvidia GPUs.
Huang has deep visibility into the market, and on the call he offered a three-pronged argument for why we’re not in a bubble.
First, he said that areas like data processing, ad recommendations, search systems, and engineering, are turning to GPUs because they need the AI. That means older computing infrastructure based around the central processor will transition to new systems running on Nvidia’s chips.
Second, Huang said, AI isn’t just being integrated into current applications, but it will enable entirely new ones.
Finally, according to Huang, “agentic AI,” or applications that can run without significant input from the user, will be able to reason and plan, and will require even more computing power.
In making the case of Nvidia, Huang said it’s the only company that can address the three use cases.
“As you consider infrastructure investments, consider these three fundamental dynamics,” Huang said. “Each will contribute to infrastructure growth in the coming years.”
Reversing the slide
In its earnings release, Nvidia reported revenue and profit that sailed past estimates and issued better-than-expected guidance. Last month, Huang provided a $500 billion forecast for sales of the company’s AI chips over calendar 2025 and 2026.
The company said on Wednesday that its order backlog didn’t even include a few recent deals, like an agreement with Anthropic that was announced this week or the expansion of a deal with Saudi Arabia.
“The number will grow,” CFO Colette Kress said on the call, saying the company was on track to hit the forecast.
Prior to Wednesday’s results, Nvidia shares were down about 8% this month. Other stocks tied to the AI have gotten hit even harder, with CoreWeave plunging 44% in November, Oracle dropping 14% and Palantir falling 17%.
Some of the worry on Wall Street has been tied to the debt that certain companies have used to finance their infrastructure buildouts.
“Our customers’ financing is up to them,” Huang said.
Specific to Nvidia, investors have raised concerns in recent weeks about how much of the company’s sales were going to a small number of hyperscalers.
Last month, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet all lifted their forecasts for capital expenditures due to their AI buildouts, and now collectively expect to spend more than $380 billion this year.
Huang said that even without a new business model, Nvidia’s chips boost hyperscaler revenue, because they power recommendation systems for short videos, books, and ads.
People will soon start appreciating what’s happening underneath the surface of the AI boom, Huang said, versus “the simplistic view of what’s happening to capex and investment.”
WATCH: Nvidia posts Q3 beat
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