Notching its biggest sequential user gain in nearly three years, Snapchat rises from the ashes.
The company reported its second quarter results for 2019, revealing a growth to 203 million of daily active users, up from last quarter’s 190 million, while also beating expectations on revenue, reporting $388 million, an increase of 48% from last year.
Snap CEO, Evan Spiegel, credits the outstanding results to numerous changes that have been implemented recently, including rebuilding the Android version of Snapchat and creating a self-serve portal for advertisers known as Instant Create, which allows advertisers to create their ads in 3 simple steps:
- Select objectives
- Enter business website
- Finalise targeting and publish ad
Also at play, the company’s viral “gender swap” filter helped boost downloads of the app. Spiegel cited the success of the company’s “next generation” lenses with a statement:
“We recently launched the next generation of AR Lenses, which leverage our experience with the mobile camera as well as our ongoing investment in research and innovation,” he said. “The popularity of these Lenses drew millions of people into our rebuilt Android application, where they experienced the new and improved Snapchat that led to increased engagement.”
Showing no signs of slowing down, the company recently launched a campaign taking a subtle dig at it’s rival ‘Instagram,’ titled “Real Friends,” the campaign aims to highlight how users can connect with their friends using Snapchat.
Featuring more than 70 Snapchatters from 12 different countries, “Real Friends” shares the stories behind real friendships rather than presenting an idealised, carefully curated visions of one’s life. Snap said it partnered with “Quotefluencer” accounts on Instagram to post the ads. The ads are distinguished by Snap’s signature yellow and ghost logo, nicknamed Ghostface Chillah.
In an interview with CNBC, Snap CMO, Kenny Mitchell stated that “Snapchat is for real friends, so today we’re launching a celebration of the friends who share, laugh, love and connect with each other using our platform.”
Now Snap is guiding its Q3 revenue to be between $410 million and $435 million, also ahead of Wall Street’s guess of $403 million, with adjusted EBITDA of between negative $60 million and negative $85 million. It’s looking for daily active users to rise to between 205 million and 207 million.
That’s all for today folks!
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