Snapchat's daily video views have risen sharply to 10 billion within one year, based on a new report. Although it started as a messaging and photo-sharing app most Snapchat users now also use the mobile software to watch videos.
The number of daily video views has spiked from 8 billion daily views in February, and 4 billion in May 2015. In fact,the new figures show a 150 percent rise in video watching on Snapchat in less than a year, according to Tech Crunch. Meanwhile, Facebook reported 8 billion daily video views in November 2015.
However, it is important to note that the two companies define a video view in different ways. Snapchat counts all videos that users start watching, while Facebook videos are "viewed" for at least three seconds. Google's YouTube only counts videos that are watched for at least 30 seconds.
In addition, Snapchat stories are limited to 10-second lengths. This results in "snap storms" that include short clips that re threaded together to make a Story.
The stories show up on the mobile app for 24 hours until they disappear, which function like the app's disappearing selfies.
In addition, Snapchat has also used the video stories to publish more news bites. It introduced a new political show about the 2016 United States presidential race. The app has also added a new Discover feature that lets news outlets including BuzzFeed and CNN post short videos on the mobile app.
Snapchat also has a user base of over 500 million people. That is compared to Facebook's 1.09 billion daily active users reported in March 2016.
Snapchat reports that over 60 percent of US smartphone users between 13 and 34 years old use the video-sharing app, according to Fortune. In addition, the company is the most popular social media app among teens and has more users than Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
The world's largest social network has recently pushed live-streaming through Facebook Live and other tools. It is unclear how such initiatives will affect the company's video views.
Snapchat was released in September 2011. The company reports that the app's users send 2 billion images and videos per day as of May 2015.
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