Shares in digital ad-dependent Snap tumbled as much as 40%, their biggest intraday decline ever, erasing about $15 billion in market value. Added to the value of declines for peers including Facebook-owner Meta Platforms, Google-owner Alphabet, Twitter and Pinterest, the group has seen $165.6 billion billion wiped out.
Snap was trading at $13.22 down 41.19% at 2345 IST, below its 2017 initial public offering price of $17.
“At this point, our sense is this is more macro and industry-driven versus Snap specific,” Piper Sandler analyst Tom Champion wrote in a note.
Others on Wall Street agreed, with Citi analyst Ronald Josey saying “a slowing macro is likely impacting advertising results across the broader Internet sector, although we believe platforms more exposed to brand advertising-like Twitter, Google’s YouTube, and Pinterest-are likely experiencing a greater impact overall.”
The owner of the Snapchat app, which sends disappearing messages and adds special effects to videos, reported quarterly user growth in April that topped estimates. But with the company saying just a month later that it won’t meet prior forecasts for revenue and profit, analysts noted a rapid deterioration of the economic environment.
