Image: PA Media
While competition continues between Snapchat and Instagram, Snap Inc CEO Evan Spiegel sees TikTok as a friend rather than another rival.
Snapchat has added another seven million daily active users in the last three months while losses narrowed, the photo sharing app has revealed in its latest results.
The platform’s parent company Snap Inc said it attracted 210m daily active users in its latest quarter, up 13pc year on year. More Snapchatters using the Discover tab and an increase in the number of Lenses created by people helped drive the firm’s results.
The figures
Revenue for Snap reached $446.2m in the three months to the end of September, an increase on the $388m from the previous quarter.
The company continued to operate at a net loss but edged a step closer to profitability, with losses shrinking to $227.3m this period, compared to $255.2m the three months before.
Snapchat has recently added a number of new features as it takes on the likes of Instagram, including a 3D camera mode and a third generation of its camera-enabled Spectacles.
Chief executive Evan Spiegel said: “We delivered strong results this quarter and we are pleased that the investments we have made are continuing to drive the growth of our community and our business.
“We are a high-growth business with strong operating leverage, a clear path to profitability, a distinct vision for the future and the ability to invest over the long term.
“We are excited about executing on the many opportunities in front of us.”
A deepening partnership with TikTok
Spiegel also noted that the company has benefitted from a year-over-year growth in user activity in Q3, including growth in the number of users posting and viewing Stories on the platform. The Stories feature plays a significant role in the number of ads that are viewed on the platform.
This is the first time the company has indicated that Stories has been growing over the last two years, since Instagram launched a Stories feature of its own. The company also said that users opened the app an average of 30 times per day, compared to 25 times per day in July 2018.
Snap’s CEO also made some surprising comments about TikTok, the video sharing platform owned by ByteDance. When he was asked why TikTok was allowed to buy ads on the platform, Spiegel said: “We definitely see TikTok as a friend.
“The value they provide their community is very different than the value we provide ours to really empower communications with real friends. We’re excited to continue deepening that partnership and continue working together.”
– PA Media, with additional reporting from Kelly Earley
