*By Alisha Haridisani*
Snap Inc.’s shares plunged by more than 15 percent Tuesday after the social media company reported a rough first quarter that missed estimates for both revenue and user growth.
Revenue came in at $231 million, 25 percent higher than a year ago but well below Wall Street's expectation for $244 million. The company also added just 4 million daily active users in the quarter, short of the 7 million adds forecast by analysts.
The results point to just how much of a problem Snap’s redesign has been for the company. “This is the first full quarter that the redesign has been out in the wild,” said Cheddar’s Alex Heath.
The company’s new look, which separated content from friends and channels, upset both users and publishers and even prompted celebrities such as Kylie Jenner to publicly cut ties with the platform. And after months of standing by the changes, the company last month was forced to backtrack, promising to redesign the redesign.
“We are now focused on optimizing the redesign based on our ongoing experimentation,” CEO Evan Spiegel said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our efforts to refine and improve Snapchat.”
So far, investors don't seem convinced. The stock fell close to its lowest levels on record.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-and-apple-report-earnings).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
