Back in 2013, Snapchat rejected a $3 billion bid from Facebook to buyout the company. Fast forward two years later, and Snapchat has reached 6 billion video views, following closely behind Facebook’s 8 billion – tripling the traffic the company got in May.
In comparison, Facebook counts about eight billion views per day, on both desktop and mobile. While the Snapchat audience is entirely made up of smartphone users, this marks an important milestone for the social media app. eMarketer forecasts a 42 percent leap in digital video revenues this year to over $7.5 billion in the US alone.
These revelations are good news for Snapchat, considering that only a few weeks ago they were the focus of controversy surrounding their updated terms of service, which allowed the company to use any pictures taken with its app for promotional use. Another blow to Snapchat was their closing of their own Discover channel back in October after lacklustre views.
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said in May that he “intends to take his company public” and does have a plan for it, but hasn’t specified when that might happen.
