The majority of people using Snapchat Inc.’s application are making videos, fueling a boom in watching them, the company is telling its investors, according to Bloomberg.
More than a third of Snapchat’s daily users create "Stories," broadcasting photos and videos from their lives that last 24 hours, according to people familiar with the matter. Now users are watching 10 billion videos a day on the application, up from 8 billion in February, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
Snapchat is sharing the new stories statistic with investors to help explain that its app is focused on serving people who create and broadcast content, not just consume it. The first screen of the app is a camera, prompting users to share what they’re seeing or doing. Users can decide whether to send their snap directly to friends, where it disappears after it’s watched, or post it to their Snapchat Story, where it can be viewed for 24 hours by a broader audience, Bloomberg says.
On Snapchat, "conversations are not only including a photo or video, but are being started by them," Robert Peck, an analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, said in a report this week. "People’s behavior is changing so that photos are being used as speech instead of a repository for memories."
Snapchat, which last raised money at a $16 billion valuation, has more than 100 million daily users who spend an average of 25 to 30 minutes on the app each day, Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said in a February presentation to bankers. About 60 percent of the daily users send snaps to friends, Bloomberg says.
