8 Snap Analysts React To Q2 Earnings Miss: 'Not Snapping Back Anytime Soon'

Snap Inc SNAP shares traded lower by 38% on Friday after the company disappointed Wall Street with its second-quarter numbers.

On Thursday, Snap reported a second-quarter adjusted EPS loss of 2 cents, missing analyst estimates of a 1-cent loss. Snap's $1.11 billion in revenue for the quarter also fell short of consensus expectations of $1.14 billion. Revenue was up 13% from a year ago.

Snap reported 347 million Global Daily Active Users (DAUs), beating analyst estimates of 344.2 million. Snap did not provide official guidance for the third quarter but said third-quarter revenue growth would be "approximately flat."

Snap also announced a new $500 million stock repurchase program.

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User Growth Overshadowed: Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said Snap needs to demonstrate spending discipline given its smaller gross profit base than social media peers.

"The steep slope of SNAP's 2Q ad deterioration (with April growing roughly 30% Y/Y and June declining an estimated -8% Y/Y) speaks to the weakening ad spend environment and larger than expected microlevel factors impacting the business," Nowak wrote.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post noted Snap's strong user trends were far overshadowed by its revenue miss.

"While there is risk the perceived macro or competitive outlook deteriorates further in 3Q (we will learn a lot from Meta and Pinterest’s 2Q results), we believe an ad recession is largely priced in the stock with SNAP trading at 3.7x our revised 2023 revenue estimate using AH price of $12 (stock was a 3.8x P/S in 2018 when users were declining q/q)," Post wrote.

JMP analyst Andrew Boone said Snap's macroeconomic, privacy and competition headwinds are all intensifying.

"While we acknowledge the lack of revenue visibility as the company is rebuilding a portion of its advertising measurement and targeting, we believe Snap still has significant assets as it reaches 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds in 20+ countries, continues to be a leader in AR, and has multiples growth levers across Spotlight, Map and Games/Minis as we believe innovation remains a core company tenet," Boone wrote.
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From Bad To Worse: Benchmark analyst Mark Zgutowicz noted Snap is "not snapping back anytime soon."

"We believe fundamental (iOS measurement/ROAS) and macro factors are equally impacting SNAP ads platform demand, with the former remaining a slow work in progress, as we previously suggested," Zgutowicz wrote.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Brad Erickson said Snap once again proved things can always get worse.

"SNAP’s weak Q3 guidance confirmed our fears that ad spending is worsening, consistent with our June 23 channel checks, and unfortunately for SNAP and the digital ad sector, we believe there are signs of further ad spending cuts still to come," Erickson wrote.

Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler said privacy concerns, ad budget headwinds and higher operating expenses are weighing on Snap's growth.

"We view risk/reward as fairly balanced at current levels of ~4.2/6.8x our 2022 revenue/gross profit estimates as the company plans a path to higher growth and cost improvements," Kessler wrote.

Disappearing Revenue Growth: Rosenblatt Securities analyst Barton Crockett said he is stunned by how quickly Snap's revenue growth has evaporated.

"After rising 66%, 116% and 57% in the first three quarters of 2021, sales growth slowed to 42% in 4Q21, 38% in 1Q22, 13% in 2Q22, and, now, flat Y/Y QTD in 3Q22," Crockett wrote.

KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson says competition from TikTok, Apple Inc AAPL and others are hurting, while Snap's ad solutions are simply taking too long to drive improvements.

"Given a ~20% revenue growth profile and persistent GAAP loses, we struggle to see SNAP's 2023E/2024E EV/S multiple expanding beyond 3.6x/3.0x," Patterson wrote.

Ratings And Price Targets:

• Morgan Stanley had an Overweight rating and a $17 target.
• Bank of America had a Buy rating and a $22 target.
• JMP had a Market Outperform rating and a $24 target.
• Benchmark had a Buy rating and a $15 target.
• RBC Capital Markets had a Sector Perform rating and a $10 target.
• Raymond James had a Market Perform rating.
• Rosenblatt Securities had a Neutral rating and a $14 target.
• KeyBanc had a Sector Weight rating.

Photo: dennizn via Shutterstock