Forcing some skeptics to eat their words, Snap Inc. reported another strong quarterly performance on Tuesday.
During the third quarter, the “camera company” said revenue
hit $446 million, which was up about 50%, year-over-year.
Better yet, Snap said it added about 7 million daily active users during the quarter -- reaching 210 million DAUs -- which represented
a 13% increase, year-over-year.
“Snap appears to be back on track this quarter,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson.
Among other growth areas, Snap
cofounder-CEO Evan Spiegel said the company’s Discovery platform was performing particularly well.
Year-over-year, total daily time spent by Snapchat users watching Discover
increased by 40%. During the third quarter, more than 100 Discover channels reached a monthly audience of over 10 million viewers.
During the third quarter, Snap also added more than 50 new
channels across eight international markets, while time spent on premium content internationally increased by more than 55%, year-over-year.
As for original content, the company’s
horror-thriller Snap Original “Dead of Night” has already reached more than 14 million unique viewers since its premiere in September.
Appealing to retail, ecommerce and
direct-to-consumer brands, Snap recently launched Dynamic Ads, which can be automatically created in real-time based on a brand’s product catalog.
Potentially containing hundreds of
thousands of products, the new unit can also be tailored based on users’ interests and delivered through a range of templates.
After a few tough years, Snap appears to have regained its
financial footing, while proving its service is more than a fad. Yet, analysts still see plenty of challenges ahead for Snap.
“Competition from upstart social platform TikTok is
still looming … and it could lead to lower engagement for Snapchat in the future, because both platforms target the youth audience,” Williamson warned.
Looking ahead, Snap
is expected to be eying acquisition targets. That’s why the company proceeded with a private offering of $1 billion in convertible senior notes this summer.
Specifically, Snap said it would
be on the lookout for “complementary businesses, products, services or technologies.”