Snap Stock News

Snapchat, an app whose disappearing messages and silly face filters made chatting with loved ones more casual, is close to a milestone that few social media platforms achieve: reaching 1 billion monthly users.

Snap said on Monday it will offer Australians the chance to verify their age with software owned by the country's banks as the internet platform complies with a teenage social media ban which takes effect next month.

After primarily focusing on private conversations since its founding, Snapchat is embracing public conversations with a new “Topic Chats” feature. The social network says the feature lets users chat about what's happening in the world and across various communities, from Formula 1 to the reality TV show “Below Deck.

Shares of the social media company jumped after the latest update showed improving ad performance. Snapchat's monthly-active-user count is approaching 1 billion.

Snap surged post-earnings on a $400 million AI partnership with Perplexity AI, despite weak user growth and ARPU trends. The Perplexity deal provides near-term revenue upside, but SNAP's long-term success hinges on reigniting North American user growth. Q3 results showed sluggish global DAU growth, flatlining in North America, and ARPU compression, highlighting fundamental business challenges.

Major U.S. equities indexes slid Thursday afternoon, led by tech stocks after a flurry of earnings reports and as worries about an AI bubble resurfaced. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all lost ground.

Perplexity will pay Snap $400 million over one year to integrate its artificial intelligence-powered answer engine into Snapchat.

Snap shares soared some 12% on Thursday after the owner of the Snapchat social media platform posted better-than-expected results and guidance on user growth and spending.