Snap cuts 18 in recruitment unit after dozen layoffs in hardware marketing team

Following around a dozen people cuts in its hardware marketing division the past month, Snap has confirmed that it let go of 18 people in its recruiting division. This was according to a report by CNBC. A spokesperson from Snap said to the news outlet that the cuts make up less than 1% of the company’s total workforce. Snap did not comment on additional queries by Marketing.On top of the job cuts, Snap has also planned to slow its recruitment in the next year, with the spokesperson adding that the move was a “logical” one seeing the high speed of growth the company is facing. CNBC also said that Snap had around 2,600 employees in the previous quarter.In the six months ending 30 June 2017, Snap saw a rise in sales and marketing costs of US$310,636 in 2017 from US$39,324 the year before. In the three months ending 30 June 2017, sales and marketing costs were at US$90,903 in 2017 from US$24,587 the year before. The company also saw a rise in research and development (R&D) costs. In the six months ending 30 June 2017, R&D costs were at US$1,061,583 in 2017, up from US$64,150 in 2016.Daily active users for Snapchat grew from 143 million in Q2 2016 to 173 million in Q2 2017, according to its Q2 financial report. This amounted to an increase of 30.5 million or 21% year-on-year. Meanwhile, average revenue per user was at US$1.05 in Q2 2017, which is an increase of 109% over Q2 2016 which was at US$0.50.In May, the company hit 166 million daily active users at a growth rate of 5%. This placed it behind Instagram Stories, which passed 200 million users. Snapchat’s yoy rate continued to drop as well, falling to 36% yoy from 48% in Q4. Right after the announcement, Snapchat’s shares were down nearly 25% in after-hours trading. This followed the launch of its IPO in February of US$3 billion.Read also: Where are the influencers: Instagram Stories or Snapchat Stories? [Infographic] Instagram launches Snapchat-like filter feature