Snapchat parent to lay off 20% workers, report

Snapchat's parent company Snap Inc is planning to lay off 20% of its staff starting this week, The Verge reported citing unnamed sources. According to the report, the lay-off will impact developers working on apps and games for Snapchat, the hardware division behind the AR glasses Spectacles, and in the Zenly team, the social mapping app which was acquired by Snap in 2017. 

The ad department is also expected to be restructured as two senior executives Jeremi Gorman, the chief business officer at Snap, and Peter Naylor, vice president of ad sales, are reportedly moving to Netflix to run their ads business, according to a separate report in the Verge, which was confirmed by a Snap Inc spokesperson. The layoff plans have still not been confirmed by Snap Inc. 

The US-based social media company currently employs over 6,000 people across the world. Snapchat has 347 million daily active users (DAU) as of the quarter ending June 30, growing year-on-year (YoY) at 18%, Snap Inc said in its quarterly financial results last month. Though the user base has grown, the company reported a net loss of $422 million, up from $152 million in the previous year. 

Snap Inc has been looking to improve its bottom line. In June, it launched a subscription-based service called Snapchat Plus, to “share exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features with paid subscribers. The service was launched in India in August at ₹49 per month. Snapchat isn't the only social network that is taking the subscription route. In June, Telegram also launched a premium version for a monthly subscription fee of $4.99. 

Most tech companies have announced layoffs in the last few months due to the economic slowdown and growing inflation. Last month, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai reportedly told employees that the company is slowing down the hiring process for the rest of the year. 

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg also told employees in August that it's planning to hire 30% fewer engineers this year due to the economic downturn. Meta was earlier planning to hire 10,000 new engineers.