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Even as Snapchat manages to retain the loyalty of its current users, the main product of Snap Inc. is losing ground to the much bigger brand that is Instagram. It would seem that the bigger social network platform is currently blocking the smaller one’s growth, effectively stifling expansion. Much of it has to do with Instagram’s massive global presence, which Snapchat has yet to successfully replicate.
Those following the trends in the social media industry may remember that the Facebook-owned platform copied its competitor’s Stories feature, which has since surpassed the original in terms of number. Last month, Instagram revealed that it already had 200 million daily active users, Tech Crunch notes. That’s more than Snapchat’s 158 million that it released for the last quarter of 2016.
As a result of this rapid growth for Instagram, there is now a clear line being drawn in the global stage with regards to which platform teens around the world prefer. If more and more of them use Instagram instead of Snapchat, it’s naturally going to create pressure to stick with the more popular option.
This reduces the chances of Snap Inc. to implement significant growth in the market, especially since it lost its edge against Facebook when Instagram cloned its most popular feature. What’s worse is the fact that the company isn’t even trying to capitalize on the budding tech communities in less developed countries.
The Motley Fool points out that Snap Inc. has been slow to roll out its social media app to regions that don’t really have the best internet connections. From a technical standpoint, this makes a lot of sense since its product is hugely reliant on being online.
However, Facebook has no such compunctions and is more than willing to flood these markets with all of the services and offers that it can cram into the tiniest spaces. Instagram was able to grow its user base so rapidly because of this practice and is the reason why Snapchat is losing the youth war.
