Instagram grows meteorically as Snapchat manages to add a mere seven million users in Q2 2017

Hit by the growth of Facebook-owned Instagram ‘Stories’, photo-sharing platform Snapchat managed to add only seven million daily active users (DAUs) in the second quarter of 2017.

[caption id=“attachment_3922107” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Snapchat has lesser daily active users than Instagram. Reuters.[/caption] Announcing financial results for the quarter ended June 30, Snap Inc reported a loss of $443 million, with $181 million as revenue which was still below analysts’ expectations of $186 million, CNET reported late on Thursday. Snap shares plunged 14 per cent after the results. “We believe deeply in the long-term success of Snap,” CEO Evan Spiegel told analysts after the results, adding that “the company is making progress”. The DAUs grew from 143 million in Q2 2016 to 173 million in Q2 2017, an increase of 30.5 million or 21 per cent (year-over-year). “DAUs increased 7.3 million or four per cent quarter-over-quarter from 166 million in Q1 2017,” Snap said in a statement. On the other hand, Instagram ‘Stories’ has **garnered over 250 million** MAUs. Instagram currently has nearly 700 million users globally. The results underscore that “Instagram Stories has essentially flattened Snapchat’s meteoric rise.” Investors in Facebook, Twitter, and now Snap care tremendously about **user growth** . Facebook, with its 2 billion users, is enjoying record-high stock prices. Twitter, with its growth barely budging, is not. In order to build user growth Google is reportedly working on Stamp, which The Wall Street Journal compared to Snapchat’s Discover feature for letting people find photo and video-heavy news items.