*By Alex Heath*
Snap Inc. reported its first quarterly decline in daily users on Tuesday, but shares surged in after-hours trading because the company’s second quarter revenue beat estimates and it received a $250 million investment from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
The Snapchat app lost 3 million daily users in the second quarter after a negative reaction to the app’s redesign. CEO Evan Spiegel told investors Tuesday that the redesign was, “an important evolution of our product that will help drive future growth in engagement.”
Snap reported 188 million daily users while Wall Street was expecting 193 million. Revenue grew to $262 million, more than the expected $250 million. The company’s net loss decreased 20 percent year-over-year to $353 million. Snap’s non-advertising revenue, which includes its Spectacles camera glasses, was only $2 million for the quarter.
Shares of Snap were buoyed on Tuesday by the [announcement](http://www.alwaleed.com.sa/news-and-media/news/investment/) that the Prince Alwaleed, a billionaire tech investor who has backed companies including Twitter and Lyft, purchased a 2.3 percent stake in Snap. He bought publicly traded “Class A” shares, meaning he doesn’t have a vote in company matters.
Under the guidance of the newly appointed CFO Tim Stone, Snap gave investors revenue outlook for the first time, predicting that the company will earn $265 million to $290 million in the third quarter. Stone also warned that Snap’s user growth rate could continue to fall, noting that user growth rates have “trended down both year-over-year and sequentially” in the third quarter when compared to the second.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/will-snap-share-the-same-earnings-fate-as-facebook-and-twitter).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
