Snapchat, Just 4 Years Old, Passes Decade-Old Twitter

June 2, 2016

Just four years into its existence, Snapchat, which began with the simple idea of being able to send expiring photo messages, has just passed one of the social media giants in number of active daily users: Twitter.

According to a report by Bloomberg, which is based on anonymous sources close to the company, Snapchat has gone from 110 million people using the app daily in December to 150 million today. That 35% increase in just the past five months is even more staggering when compared to Twitter’s latest financial report showing its total user base only up 3% worldwide, with no growth in the United States.

In that earnings report, Twitter said that they had 310 million monthly active users, but did not disclose how many of those users are daily users. If we use the “about 44%” that they said in late 2015, we can guess that there is about 136 million daily active users, well short of Snapchat’s reported numbers. While this is a huge achievement for Snapchat, it also spotlights the on-going struggles of Twitter. Once the largest social network after Facebook, the 10 year old company has recently been surpassed by Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger as well.

The slow growth of its user base and inability to capitalize on ad revenue is clearly evident when looking at the company’s stock prices, which have fallen by more than 55% since co-founder Jack Dorsey returned as CEO last year. The company’s overall worth is now around $ 10 billion, down from a high of $ 50 billion right after going public in 2013. Snapchat, armed with it’s new financing round of $ 1.8 billion, has an estimated market value of about $ 17 billion.

Messaging on Snapchat is “very modern,” Mr. Dorsey said on Wednesday at Recode’s technology conference. He acknowledged that Twitter at times can be confusing and alienating, which is something he’s trying to fix with several upcoming changes to the platform.

Snapchat has definitely made a niche for itself with younger users, in large part by their innovation around videos, face swapping, and other “game-like” features. They also encourage frequent use with features like “Snapstreak,” which counts the number of consecutive days they’ve been communicating with their closest friends.

Snapchat has also been cutting into Twitter’s real-time allure with their Discover service, which allows publications to share trending or topical news stories with users. It was reported earlier this week that Snapchat is poised to redesign Discover to make it easier for its media partners, which include Mashable and the Wall Street Journal, to share content online.

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