Photo sharing app Snapchat lost 3 million users during its most recent financial quarter, the first drop in daily activity in the company’s seven-year history.
Shares in the company fell by around 8% when the markets opened in New York yesterday morning, before finishing the day 6.8% down, the BBC says.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Rob Kniaz, co-founder of technology venture capitol firm Hoxton Ventures, told the broadcaster: “When you look at the numbers, if you’ve lost 3 million of your most active users by definition, it tells you something is materially wrong with the product and maybe the company.”
It’s believed the drop in users resulted from a controversial redesign in November, which prompted 1.2 million users to sign a petition “urging the company to revert to the previous layout”, The Independent reports.
But Snapchat chief Evan Spiegel wrote in a letter to investors that the company has “now addressed the biggest frustrations we’ve heard and are eager to make more progress on the tremendous opportunity we now have to show more of the right content to the right people”.
Despite the user exodus, The Verge says Snapchat’s financial results are still exceeding investor expectations.
Revenue grew by 44% when comparing this year’s second quarter to the same period in 2017, rising from $182m (£139m) last year to $262m (£203m) in 2018, the tech site says.
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago.
-
‘Never more precarious’: the UN turns 80The Explainer It’s an unhappy birthday for the United Nations, which enters its ninth decade in crisis
-
Trump’s White House ballroom: a threat to the republic?Talking Point Trump be far from the first US president to leave his mark on the Executive Mansion, but to critics his remodel is yet more overreach
-
How cybercriminals are hacking into the heart of the US economySpeed Read Ransomware attacks have become a global epidemic, with more than $18.6bn paid in ransoms in 2020
-
Language-learning apps speak the right lingo for UK subscribersSpeed Read Locked-down Brits turn to online lessons as a new hobby and way to upskill
-
Brexit-hobbled Britain ‘still tech powerhouse of Europe’Speed Read New research shows that UK start-ups have won more funding than France and Germany combined over past year
-
Playing Cupid during Covid: Tinder reveals Britain’s top chat-up lines of the yearSpeed Read Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and Dominic Cummings among most talked-about celebs on the dating app
-
Brits sending one less email a day would cut carbon emissions by 16,000 tonnesSpeed Read UK research suggests unnecessary online chatter increases climate change
-
Reach for the Moon: Nokia and Nasa to build 4G lunar networkSpeed Read Deal is part of the US space agency’s plan to establish human settlements on the lunar surface
-
iPhone 12 launch: what we learned from the Apple ‘Hi, Speed’ eventSpeed Read Tech giant unveils new 5G smartphone line-up
-
Russian agency behind US election meddling ‘created fake left-wing news site’Speed Read Facebook says real reporters were hired by fake editors to write about US corruption
