Mobile social media company, Snapchat announces that the number of video views on the app had surpassed 7 billion video clips per day. The latest announcement made by the company CEO, Evan Spiegel means that the company could potentially rival Facebook anytime soon.
Snapchat which is currently valued at $16 billion as reported by Business Insider, managed to attract creation of more new videos after it launched a new service a few months ago. The Snapchat Stories allow the short video clips shared by users to be viewed for 24 hours before it is being deleted which is slightly different compared to its core service.
Currently, there are around 100 million users actively using Snapchat, a low number compared to Facebook which has 1.55 billion users. However, the number of video views on Facebook is only 8 billion per day as reported by Bloomberg.
The number of videos viewed on Facebook has been under criticism since the company considers 3 seconds video views as a complete view. Besides that, a Snapchat video view can be considered as a big leap considering its users need to press the play button to view the video while Facebook will auto play its video.
Analysts view the increase in its users as a way for the company to start monetizing and obtain more profit from the platform. Los Angeles Times reported that there are rumors that the company might soon start to introduce an automated investment plan to its highly engaging users.
Besides finance, there is also another talk that Snapchat might introduces a shopping feature in its app as a way to gain more profit. One of the way the company used to obtain profit is thorugh its 'replay' feature where users are allowed to buy a 'replay' to view a video clip for the second time.
Besides that, the company also rely on its partnership with big publishing company and other brands which have been consistently making videos for advertisement on Snapchat for profit. Among the company partnering with Snapchat includes CNN, Discover, ESPN, and Cosmopolitan.
With more than $7.46 billion of advertisement spent on video advertising in the United States alone, social media companies offering video is competing to get more viewers on its platform. With Snapchat views up more than twice compared to its previous number of view of 2 billion per day back in May 2015, it is eminent that the company could rival other social media soon.
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