{"id":340598,"date":"2017-05-11T04:04:58","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T20:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1488132"},"modified":"2017-05-11T04:04:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T20:04:58","slug":"snapchat-hits-166m-daily-users-disappointingly-growing-only-slightly-faster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/snapchat-hits-166m-daily-users-disappointingly-growing-only-slightly-faster\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapchat hits 166M daily users, disappointingly growing only slightly faster"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Snap\u2019s growth rate increased only slightly in Q1 2017 \u2014 a bad start to its first quarterly earnings report since going public. Snap hit 166 million daily active users at a growth rate of 5%, compared to the 158 million DAUs it had in Q4 when it hit a 3.2% growth rate. Snap\u2019s year-over-year growth rate continued to slip, falling to 36% year-over-year from 48% in Q4.<\/p>\n

Snap shares immediately fell<\/a> more than 17% in after-hours trading as investors fled, seeing it\u2019s long-term potential scale diminished by its current growth struggles.<\/p>\n

Snap added just 3 million new users in North America in Q1 to hit 71 million DAUs, the same number as in Q4. Since it relies on its home market to drive its revenue, this slow growth is especially troubling. Snap added 3 million in Europe to hit 55 million DAU. In the Rest Of World region it added just 1 million users to reach 40 million DAU, which was actually an improvement since it stayed flat at 39 million in Q3 and Q4.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Snapchat grew quickly from its early days, hitting its stride in late 2015 and early 2016. It grew 13.8% in Q4 2015, 14% in Q1 2016, and 17.2% in Q2 2016 to reach 143 daily active users. But in August 2016 launch of competitor Instagram Stories and the removal of the auto-advance feature that chained friends\u2019 Stories together. TechCrunch predicted Instagram\u2019s clone might not lure away loyal Snapchatters but could significantly hinder its growth.<\/a> Analytics companies and social media celebrities told TechCrunch that they had seen Snapchat view counts drop between 15% and 40%, while some users had begun to prioritize sharing and watching on Instagram.<\/p>\n

When Snap Inc filed to IPO in February, it revealed numbers showing that growth had plummeted. Snapchat grew just 7% in Q3 2016 and 3.2% in Q4. That means Snap\u2019s growth fell nearly 82%<\/a> to just 1\/5th of its speed before Instagram Stories\u2019 launch.<\/p>\n

Since the IPO, Facebook has only gotten more aggressive about copying Snapchat. It launched Messenger Day, WhatsApp Status, and Facebook Stories \u2014 all clones of Snapchat Stories. Meanwhile, Instagram Stories hit 200 million daily active users, surpassing Snapchat\u2019s entire app. Plus it launched a revamped Direct messaging feature that combined Snapchat-style ephemeral chat with traditional permanent messages.<\/p>\n

Snap has sought to stay one step ahead of Instagram and Facebook. It\u2019s developed more \u201cShows\u201d with television networks for its Discover section. It began rolling out a Stories Search feature for viewing publicly submitted posts about certain topics. And it\u2019s launched new creative tools like its Scissors cut-and-paste feature, Magic Eraser for photoshopping objects out of images, and augmented reality World Lenses that insert make-believe 3D objects into your Snaps.<\/p>\n

Now with growth still struggling, the question is whether Snapchat can continue to survive Facebook\u2019s onslaught, especially as the tech giant rolls out Snap\u2019s best features to its international markets, potentially blocking future growth for Snapchat. If it can\u2019t prove it can get to massive scale, Snap will have to tell a tougher story about grinding out a higher average revenue per user and deeper time spent in the app in order to grow its business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Snap’s growth rate increased only slightly in Q1 2017 — a bad start to its first quarterly earnings report since going public. Snap hit 166 million daily active users at a growth rate of 5%, compared to the 158 million DAUs it had in Q4 when it hit a 3.2% growth rate. Snap’s year-over-year growth rate continued to slip, falling to 36% year-over-year from 48% in Q4. Snap… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-340598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}