Snap crash costs boss £200m

SNAP shares fell by more than a third yes- terday as it grapples with an advertising slowdown – leaving founder Evan Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr ( pictured right) nursing losses of £200m.

The social media giant saw shares fall 35pc after Wall Street was left frustrated by its latest quarterly performance.

On Tuesday Snap said that its revenues hit £1bn in the three months to the end of December, a figure that was up by 5pc on a year earlier but below the expectations of the market.

Snap bosses said this reflected the ‘challenging operating environment’ including pressures on the advertising business from conflict in the Middle East.

And although it narrowed its quarterly losses to £196m, down from £228m the year before, shares tumbled when Wall Street opened yesterday.

The update came just days after Snap announced plans to cut 10pc of its global workforce – or 500 employees.

Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, said: ‘The rebound hasn’t kept pace with the big tech titans.

‘Snap is trying to distance itself from social media, but it still must compete for social ad dollars.

‘Snap is a smaller, less essential player for advertisers than Meta, and it has struggled to build a robust ad business.’

Last week rival Meta released bumper figures, as the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram reported a 25pc rise in ad revenues in the final three months of last year. Susannah Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘It’s clear fewer are optimistic about Snap’s ability to bounce back from the ad slump.

‘A nagging worry about the way Snap is being run has turned into a crisis of confidence.’

Snap was launched in 2011 by Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.

The tech founder, who is worth an estimated £2.1bn, married model Kerr in 2017.