May 11 (UPI) — The owner of Snapchat lost more than $2 billion during its first quarter as a publicly traded company.
Snap Inc. reported its Q1 earnings Wednesday, which showed revenue of just under $150 million from March 2-31.
Snap’s net loss was a staggering $2.2 billion, which was much greater than analysts expected. Its loss in Q1 2016 was just $104 million.
Experts note, though, that much of the loss involves stock-based compensation the company gave out to go public. CEO Evan Spiegel received a $750 million bonus for the IPO.
The camera and social media company had its IPO on March 2, which was the biggest Wall Street debut in three years.
From February to March, Snap added an additional 8 million users, which was also under experts’ forecasts.
“The No. 1 question we receive about Snap is can it sustain its user growth and how big can it be?” analyst Ralph Schackart said earlier this month.
Shares of Snap (NYSE: SNAP) also declined in trading Wednesday to close at $22.97. Then in after hours trading, the shares took a nosedive to just over $17 early Wednesday evening.
“We made good progress this quarter improving the performance and quality of our Snapchat application, especially on Android, which has helped result in increased net user adds and engagement,” Snap chief strategist Imran Khan told CNBC. “We still have a lot of work to do, and are excited about the potential from continued performance improvements.”
