Facebook: Highlights from Snapchat's 22% Price Decline Post Q3 Results

(Free on Substack) Company Update (FB US) (Buy)

A version of this has also been published on my Twitter account.

Introduction: Shares of social media company Snapchat (“SNAP”) fell 22% in after-market trading on Thursday (October 21) after it released Q3 2021 results. These described a significant impact from Apple’s iOS 14.5 platform changes. Facebook shares also fell 6.5% initially, but finished the aftermarket session down 4.4%. We highlight relevant datapoints from SNAP’s results. In general, we continue to expect short-term volatility in Facebook’s performance but feel confident about its long-term future, as explained in our update earlier this month. Facebook is scheduled to report Q3 results next Monday (October 25).

Apple iOS 14.5 Impact Worsened Over Time

According to SNAP, the impact of Apple’s iOS 14.5 worsened over time after its late April release. One reason was that widespread adoption of iOS 14.5 only took place in June/July, when Apple pushed all of its users to update. Another reason was that Apple’s own ad tracking…