Snap's share prices plunged by nearly 30% in extended trading Monday after it was found out that the company had told employees that it might not be able to hit its revenue and earnings targets for the current quarter.
The company's CEO, Evan Spiegel, reportedly told employees in an internal email that it would no longer be possible for them to hit their targets. He also mentioned that the company might slow down its hiring plans to reduce its expenses.
Spiegel said Snap will still be hiring new people, but it would be doing it at a much slower pace. He said the company would need to hire 500 new employees within the year. This figure is much lower than the 2,000 new employees the company hired last year.
A part of the email was included in the company's recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the filing, the company mentioned that the current macro environment is deteriorating at a much faster rate than initially anticipated. Because of this, the company said it believes that growth may slow down significantly.
Snap posted its first-quarter earnings report in April, which had fallen short of Wall Street's sales and profit projections. The company stated at the time that sales growth would be between 20% and 25% year over year. It predicted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of $0 to $50 million.
Spiegel said in its latest filing that the company would likely be reporting revenue and adjusted EBITDA below the low end of its initial guidance for the quarter.
The announcement rocked the online ad market, sending several of Snap's competitors down in the hours that followed after the news broke out. In after-hours trading, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, fell 7%. Twitter was down nearly 4%, while Pinterest was down 12%. Outside of social media, shares of advertising firms slumped after hours, with Google parent Alphabet down more than 3% and The Trade Desk down more than 8%.
Like other social media companies, Snapchat is dealing with growing prices and interest rates, supply chain constraints, workforce interruptions, and platform policy changes such as Apple's iPhone privacy feature. The war in Ukraine has also had a detrimental impact on its business and the industry as a whole.
Snap shares were down nearly 50% for the year as of Monday's closing, compared to a 17% decrease for the S&P 500. The shares plunged 28% to $16.15 after hours.
