When Snapchat launched in 2011, it was a one-of-a-kind messaging app. Seven years later, Snapchat’s parent company Snap is facing competition from Facebook, which offers three different apps that mimic Snapchat’s flagship features.
Thanks in part to its controversial redesign, Snapchat user growth has largely flattened out. Meanwhile, Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Status, and Facebook Stories – all Facebook-owned services – continue to grow, as shown by this chart from Statista. In fact, Facebook Stories hit 150 million daily active users in May, putting it within spitting distance of Snapchat’s last reported figure of 191 million.
This isn’t new to the Snap-Facebook relationship. Facebook launched Instagram Stories, its first Snapchat rival, in 2016, and managed to surpass Snapchat’s user count within months. Its second time around with the Stories format was WhatsApp Status, which launched a month before the Snapchat IPO, and the most recent one – Facebook Stories – launched the same month as Snapchat’s IPO. Now, Facebook is outstripping Snapchat’s growth.