Despite major losses, Snapchat is looking to grow

Despite major losses, Snapchat is looking to grow
FILE PHOTO: A woman stands in front of the logo of Snap Inc. on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) while waiting for Snap Inc. to post their IPO, in New York City, NY, U.S. March 2, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Snapchat isn’t doing so hot right now. Its stock has been on a downward slide for about a year now, making the company worth US$130 billion last year, now only worth an estimated US$20 billion this year. Snap also just laid about 1,200 employees off, and its CEO described 2022 as “getting punched in the face hard.” (Honestly, though, is he wrong?)

But, in an internal memo leaked to the Verge, the company’s CEO Evan Spiegel said it aims to grow its user base by nearly a third by the end of next year. He also said he wants revenue to be at US$6 billion by the end of next year, with a good chunk of that coming from the app’s new paid subscription feature.

The other major thing said in the memo is that the company will lean into features like the Map and Spotlight sections, which, according to him, are the harder pieces of the app to copy and, therefore, less competitive. This is in contrast to, say, investing in something like Reels, which is in competition with pretty much every other social media platform.

Key comments:

“We saw challenges on the horizon, and hedged our bets accordingly, but still got punched in the face hard by 2022’s new economic reality,” wrote Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s CEO. “We didn’t anticipate the War in Ukraine, skyrocketing energy and food costs, persistently high inflation, and a more than 45x increase in the fed funds rate since last September. We have decisively entered a new era, and we must adapt and overcome to succeed in this new reality.”

“With equities, home prices, job openings, and wages in the US at all-time highs amidst all these challenges it’s only appropriate to wonder: what could go wrong?” wrote Spiegel in a memo last year.