Instagram Stories Is Already More Popular Than Snapchat Itself

Shares of Snapchat-owner Snap fell 1.2 percent on Thursday after rival Instagram, owned by Facebook, said more than 200 million people a day use its Stories feature, which competes against Snapchat.

Snapchat had 161 million daily active users at the end of last year, ahead of Snap's March initial public offer, which was the largest by a technology firm in three years despite decelerating user growth.

Instagram Stories' daily active users announced on Thursday amount to an increase of 33 percent from the 150 million daily active users it had in January.

The Instagram feature, which launched last year, lets users and businesses post a string of photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours, similar to Snapchat.

Facebook last month introduced an update to allow users to tweak photos on their smartphones with visual details like a rainbow or a beard of glitter, also similar to Snapchat.

Snap surged in its public listing but has struggled since then.

The stock on Thursday fell 23 cents to trade at $19.99 (roughly Rs. 1,300). It is down 26 percent from a record high close on March 3, but remains up 17 percent from its $17 per share IPO price.

The company on May 10 will announce its quarterly results for the first time as a publicly listed company and is expected on average to have lost $193 million (roughly Rs. 1,244 crores), according to Thomson Reuters data. Snap has warned it may never become profitable.

© Thomson Reuters 2017