After the unveiling of expensive augmented reality glasses, Snap shares fell

Snap’s long-awaited augmented reality glasses, Specs, didn’t have the best debut.

The company’s stock hasn’t been on the healthiest path lately. It’s down 30% over the past year. After Specs launched, it fell more than 5% — falling from $5.86 a share on Tuesday to a low of $4.83 on Wednesday morning. As of this writing, the stock has not regained the position it occupied before the announcement.

The big concern surrounding Snap’s new smart glasses — which the company has been working on for more than a decade — is cost: The company confirms they will retail for $2,200 apiece.

It’s worth noting that Snap’s core demographic — teens — aren’t typically equipped with that kind of pocket change, leading onlookers to question the new product’s trajectory of profitability.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel gave an interview to CNBC on Tuesday (during which he wore the new glasses), and when asked about the hefty price tag, he responded: “The most important way to think about the specs is as a computer, so their prices are comparable to other high-end computers or laptops.”

Spiegel also justified the cost by saying that Specs occupy a unique space in the AR market between glasses like Meta’s Ray-Bans — which cost a lot less but offer much less computing power — and larger headsets like Apple’s Vision Pro, which are powerful but expensive.

Spiegel said his product is “extremely wearable, but also incredibly capable of immersive computing.”