a bruising year snap inc’s shares worsened thursday as the stock plummeted more than 20 in afterhours trading as executives launched the company’s first major sharerepurchase program amid revenue issues in a poor environment for online advertising snap snap executives revealed that revenue increased less than 6 year over year in the quarter and said that the holiday season is shaping up similarly with sales increasing 9 so far in the quarter the socialmedia company which laid off roughly 20 of its staff this summer in response to the issues also declined to provide a full forecast for the important fourth quarter “forwardlooking revenue visibility remains incredibly challenging and this is compounded by the fact that revenue in q4 is typically disproportionately generated in the back half of the quarter which further reduces our visibility” executives explained about the lack of guidance in a letter to investors the board did approve a 500 million share repurchase a first for the young company in a news release executives said that the move was meant “to opportunistically offset a portion of the dilution related to the issuance of restricted stock units to employees as part of the overall compensation program designed to foster an ownership culture” snap’s results the first among the major tech companies who rely heavily on digital advertising likely portend even more turbulent times ahead for alphabet inc’s googl goog google facebook parent company meta platforms inc meta  twitter inc twtr  pinterest inc pins and others in the grip of inflation a war in ukraine foreignexchange worries and a widening recession deteriorating macroeconomic conditions have left advertisers with little choice but to delay or cancel buys at the same time intensifying competition from the likes of tiktok and others has deepened headwinds snap reported a thirdquarter net loss of 3595 million or 22 cents a share compared with a loss of 5 cents a share a year ago analysts on average were expecting a loss of 24 cents a share snap’s sales increased less than 6 to 113 billion barely falling short of street estimates of 114 billion daily active users rose 19 to 363 million factset analysts had modeled 3582 million snap shares initially fell more than 20 in afterhours trading they closed the regular trading session down 06 to 1079 shares of snap have nosedived 77 this year while the sp 500 index spx is down 23