Snap Inc. Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Financial Results

Daily Active Users increased 17% year-over-year to 375 million

Full year revenue of $4.6 billion and fourth quarter revenue of $1.3 billion

Fourth quarter operating cash flow of $125 million and Free Cash Flow of $78 million

Second full year of positive operating cash flow and Free Cash Flow

Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) today announced financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2022.

“We ended a challenging 2022 with 375 million Daily Active Users, 12% year-over-year annual revenue growth, and positive full year Free Cash Flow," said Evan Spiegel, CEO. "We continue to face significant headwinds as we look to accelerate revenue growth, and we are making progress driving improved return on investment for advertisers and innovating to deepen the engagement of our community.”

Annual Financial Summary

• Revenue increased 12% to $4.6 billion in 2022, compared to the prior year.
• Net loss was $1,430 million in 2022, including restructuring charges of $189 million, compared to $488 million in 2021.
• Third consecutive year of positive Adjusted EBITDA with $378 million in 2022.
• Second full year of positive operating cash flow and Free Cash Flow of $185 million and $55 million, respectively.

Q4 2022 Financial Summary

• Revenue was $1,300 million, compared to $1,298 million in the prior year.
• Net loss was $288 million, including restructuring charges of $34 million, compared to net income of $23 million in the prior year.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $233 million, compared to $327 million in the prior year.
• Operating cash flow was $125 million, compared to $186 million in the prior year.
• Free Cash Flow was $78 million, compared to $161 million in the prior year.

Q4 2022 Summary & Key Highlights

We grew and deepened our engagement with our community:

• DAUs were 375 million in Q4 2022, an increase of 56 million, or 17% year-over-year.
• DAUs increased sequentially and year-over-year in each of North America, Europe, and Rest of World.
• Total time spent watching Spotlight content grew over 100% year-over-year.
• 17 content partners reached over 50 million global viewers each in Q4 2022.
• Through our broadcast partnerships with beIN SPORTS in Qatar and France, ITV in the UK, MediaPro in Spain, and Bell in Canada, among others, over 60 million Snapchatters watched World Cup Stories content on Snapchat and over 285 million Snapchatters engaged with World Cup AR.
• We renewed our partnerships with UFC and the Washington Post in the US. Internationally, we expanded our partnership with Groupe M6 in France and signed new agreements with BBC Studios in the UK, G+J Medien (RTL) in Germany, and Totem Global in Australia.

We are focused on expanding and diversifying our revenue growth:

• In Q4, our subscription service Snapchat+ reached over 2.0 million paying subscribers. Snapchat+ offers exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features, and in Q4 we launched new features such as Custom Story Expiration and Custom Notification Sounds, providing subscribers with over 12 exclusive features.
• We've improved the accessibility of Conversions API (CAPI) by enabling access through four new third-party partners, closing the year with 12 total, making CAPI more accessible to all advertisers on our platform.
• We’ve accelerated our commerce integrations through the launch of our partnership with BigCommerce, enabling tens of thousands of merchants to seamlessly sync catalogs and run Dynamic Ads.
• We've partnered with Smartly.io to unlock growth and drive performance through real time automation. Through Smartly.io’s creative and campaign management tools, brands can tap into their automated ads by scaling thousands of targeted versions.
• Thousands of brands continued investing in their organic presence on Snapchat via Public Profiles for Businesses to build deeper connections, and grow their audience and organic engagements.

We invested in our augmented reality platform:

• Over 300,000 AR creators and developers have built more than 3 million AR Lenses.
• In our latest Lens Studio release, we unveiled several new features including garment, earring, and wrist wear try‑on.
• We powered more than 161 million product trials by over 35 million Snapchatters for Walmart, leveraging Catalog-Powered Shopping Lenses at-scale.
• We launched a new Camera Kit integration with H&M enabling an AR try-on experience of their collection of immersive AR fashion, co-designed by H&M and the Institute of Digital Fashion.
• Luxottica Sunglass Hut drove over 14 million try-ons through Catalog-powered Shopping Lenses.
• In celebration of the film Avatar: The Way of Water, we teamed up with Disney to create an augmented reality Lens that turns any Snapchatter into a Na'vi. This is the first ever sponsored AR Lens integration into the SoFi Stadium infinity screen surprising and delighting attendees.
• In partnership with New Balance, we created a Holiday Gifting Concierge Lens to offer Snapchatters gifting inspiration using augmented reality and speech recognition via voiceML.
• We announced a first-of-its-kind Bitmoji Drop in partnership with adidas that allows Snapchatters to use Snap Tokens to claim an exclusive adidas track jacket. Snapchatters viewed the Bitmoji Drop banner over 280 million times.

Financial Guidance

Given uncertainties related to the operating environment, we are not providing our expectations for revenue or adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2023.

Conference Call Information

Snap Inc. will host a conference call to discuss the results at 2:30 p.m. Pacific / 5:30 p.m. Eastern today. The live audio webcast along with supplemental information will be accessible at investor.snap.com. A recording of the webcast will also be available following the conference call.

Snap Inc. uses its websites (including snap.com and investor.snap.com) as means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligation under Regulation FD.

Definitions

Free Cash Flow is defined as net cash provided by (used in) operating activities, reduced by purchases of property and equipment.

Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards includes common shares outstanding, restricted stock units, restricted stock awards, and outstanding stock options.

Adjusted EBITDA is defined as net income (loss), excluding interest income; interest expense, other income (expense), net; income tax benefit (expense); depreciation and amortization; stock-based compensation expense; payroll and other tax expense related to stock-based compensation; and certain other non-cash or non-recurring items impacting net income (loss) from time to time.

A Daily Active User (DAU) is defined as a registered Snapchat user who opens the Snapchat application at least once during a defined 24-hour period. We calculate average DAUs for a particular quarter by adding the number of DAUs on each day of that quarter and dividing that sum by the number of days in that quarter.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) is defined as quarterly revenue divided by the average DAUs.

A Monthly Active User (MAU) is defined as a registered Snapchat user who opens the Snapchat application at least once during the 30-day period ending on the calendar month-end. We calculate average Monthly Active Users for a particular quarter by calculating the average of the MAUs as of each calendar month-end in that quarter.

Note: For adjustments and additional information regarding the non-GAAP financial measures and other items discussed, please see “Non-GAAP Financial Measures,” “Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures,” and “Supplemental Financial Information and Business Metrics.”

About Snap Inc.

Snap Inc. is a technology company. We believe the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. We contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. For more information, visit snap.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding guidance, our future results of operations or financial condition, our future stock repurchase programs or stock dividends, business strategy and plans, user growth and engagement, product initiatives, objectives of management for future operations, and advertiser and partner offerings, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “contemplate,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “going to,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “target,” “will,” or “would” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions. We caution you that the foregoing may not include all of the forward-looking statements made in this press release.

You should not rely on forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. We have based the forward-looking statements contained in this press release primarily on our current expectations and projections about future events and trends, including our financial outlook, macroeconomic uncertainty, geo-political conflicts, and the COVID-19 pandemic, that we believe may continue to affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties related to: our financial performance; our ability to attain and sustain profitability; our ability to generate and sustain positive cash flow; our ability to attract and retain users, publishers, and advertisers; competition and new market entrants; managing our growth and future expenses; compliance with new laws, regulations, and executive actions; our ability to maintain, protect, and enhance our intellectual property; our ability to succeed in existing and new market segments; our ability to attract and retain qualified team members and key personnel; our ability to repay outstanding debt; future acquisitions, divestitures, or investments; and the potential adverse impact of climate change, natural disasters, health epidemics, macroeconomic conditions, and war or other armed conflict, as well as risks, uncertainties, and other factors described in “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in our most recent periodic report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, which is available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Additional information will be made available in Snap Inc.’s periodic report that will be filed with the SEC for the period covered by this press release and other filings that we make from time to time with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, including future developments related to geo-political conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and macroeconomic conditions, except as required by law.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

To supplement our consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, we use certain non-GAAP financial measures, as described below, to understand and evaluate our core operating performance. These non-GAAP financial measures, which may be different than similarly titled measures used by other companies, are presented to enhance investors’ overall understanding of our financial performance and should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP.

We use the non-GAAP financial measure of Free Cash Flow, which is defined as net cash provided by (used in) operating activities, reduced by purchases of property and equipment. We believe Free Cash Flow is an important liquidity measure of the cash that is available, after capital expenditures, for operational expenses and investment in our business and is a key financial indicator used by management. Additionally, we believe that Free Cash Flow is an important measure since we use third-party infrastructure partners to host our services and therefore we do not incur significant capital expenditures to support revenue generating activities. Free Cash Flow is useful to investors as a liquidity measure because it measures our ability to generate or use cash. Once our business needs and obligations are met, cash can be used to maintain a strong balance sheet and invest in future growth.

We use the non-GAAP financial measure of Adjusted EBITDA, which is defined as net income (loss); excluding interest income; interest expense; other income (expense), net; income tax benefit (expense); depreciation and amortization; stock-based compensation expense; payroll and other tax expense related to stock-based compensation; and certain other non-cash or non-recurring items impacting net income (loss) from time to time. We believe that Adjusted EBITDA helps identify underlying trends in our business that could otherwise be masked by the effect of the expenses that we exclude in Adjusted EBITDA.

We use the non-GAAP financial measure of non-GAAP net income (loss), which is defined as net income (loss); excluding amortization of intangible assets; stock-based compensation expense; payroll and other tax expense related to stock-based compensation; certain other non-cash or non-recurring items impacting net income (loss) from time to time; and related income tax adjustments. Non-GAAP net income (loss) and weighted average diluted shares are then used to calculate non-GAAP diluted net income (loss) per share. Similar to Adjusted EBITDA, we believe these measures help identify underlying trends in our business that could otherwise be masked by the effect of the expenses we exclude in the measure.

We believe that these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information about our financial performance, enhance the overall understanding of our past performance and future prospects, and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by our management for financial and operational decision-making. We are presenting these non-GAAP measures to assist investors in seeing our financial performance through the eyes of management, and because we believe that these measures provide an additional tool for investors to use in comparing our core financial performance over multiple periods with other companies in our industry.

For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, please see “Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures.”

Snap Inc., “Snapchat,” and our other registered and common law trade names, trademarks, and service marks are the property of Snap Inc. or our subsidiaries.

Total depreciation and amortization expense by function: