The battle for video viewing is no longer amongst YouTube and Facebook. Snapchat is the third entrant in the fight, claiming that its service is used to watch 8 billion videos on its smartphone app every single day. The info has been revealed by Snapchat CEO, Evan Spiegel, during a meeting with bankers and analysts at Morgan Stanley’s Tech in San Francisco.
The last time Snapchat revealed its stats, in May 2015, it had two billion views per day. Back then, it used to have 100 million users.
At least on paper, Snapchat is being used to view the same number of videos as Facebook. However, Facebook hasn’t updated its metrics for videos since November and it’s all but certain that Facebook would have increased that number significantly since then. What’s amazing is the fact the Facebook has over 1.5 billion monthly active users while Snapchat has achieved the milestone with a little over 100 million users (Snapchat didn’t reveal the exact number this time). Then there’s the matter that Facebook videos play automatically while Snapchat users view each video with their own consent.
The meeting, where the numbers were revealed, was closed to the public. Sources present at the meeting revealed the stats from the meeting. An average Snapchat user is spending more than 30 minutes every day while using the app. More than half of the new users since May have been over the age of 25 years.
Since the company didn’t reveal its monthly active users, it’s difficult to say how well it has done for the past 9 months. If the number was a significant improvement over the previous year, Evan Spiegel would have mentioned it. However, these are nothing but speculations and it could be any number of reasons that Snapchat decided not to share its average monthly active users. The 8 billion milestone is more than just a bragging right. It’s a matter with billions of dollars at stake as ad revenue is moving from TVs to online video platforms.
When it comes to the videos, they might have increased thanks to its publishing partnerships with publishers which are part of its Discover platform. Many big names like Vice, ESPN and CNN joined the platform to share their latest media content with the Snapchat user-base and that has surely helped increase the app usage and video viewership.
