Stats of the week: Six Snapchat figures from Mary Meeker

Mary Meeker’s annual trends report was full of interesting stats. Here are six about Snapchat that demonstrate what a threat the platform poses to Facebook.

It’s obvious that Snapchat is killing it at the moment. But venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report, which was released yesterday, illuminates just how much Snapchat is killing it.

Throughout Meeker’s 213-slide report, a few common themes stood out, one of them being the dominance of Google and Facebook. However, a few other themes – the increasing popularity of both short videos and messaging apps – show the chinks in Facebook’s armor.

Both of those point right at Snapchat, which has been shaping up to be Facebook’s biggest competition over the past several months. Here are six numbers from Meeker’s report that highlight that point:

1. 10 billion

After the first quarter of this year, Snapchat’s daily video views were at 10 billion. That’d be a crazy high figure anyway, but what makes it extra noteworthy is that Facebook’s most recently-released number is “only” 8 billion.

On a similar note, Snapchat beat Facebook in ad dollars for the first time back in January.

2. Six or seven

Part of Snapchat’s appeal is its popularity with younger consumers, who are shaping up to be the largest generation in the U.S., with a household spending power that should increase significantly over the next decade.

And the top performing channels on Snapchat Discover – including BuzzFeed, CNN and Mashable – see an average of six to seven minutes of engagement per Snapchatter each day.

And for the record, the dragon’s head is not a worthless emoji. Hello, Game of Thrones.

3. 10-20 million

While Discover is certainly popular, Snapchat’s Live Stories aren’t to be forgotten. Somewhere in between 10 to 20 million people watch them each day.

(Read more...) especially noteworthy is when people watch them; more people watched events like college football games and the MTV Music Awards on Snapchat than on TV.

4. 20

Sponsored lenses are another Snapchat strategy popular with brands. They’re silly and fun, and typically come out for special occasions.

People really engage with them; the average user spends 20 seconds playing with sponsored lenses. There was the Gatorade filter during the Super Bowl that garnered 165 million views, which has nothing on Taco Bell’s grotesque Cinco De Mayo filter, which got a record-breaking 224 million.

Today only: turn yourself into a taco using our @Snapchat lens. Because Cinco de Mayo. pic.twitter.com/P4KwLdFNFZ

— Taco Bell (@tacobell) May 5, 2016

5. 23

McDonald’s was the first brand to buy one of Snapchat’s location-specific branded filters that consumers could add to their Snaps. In the year since the feature was launched, it’s been a hit with brands.

This winter, KFC had a “Love at First Bite” filter in 900 U.K. restaurants. It was seen 9 million times and resulted in a 23 percent visitation lift among people who saw the KFC filter on their friends’ Stories.

6. 1.2 billion (give or take)

Video isn’t the only area in which Snapchat is proving itself to be a formidable Facebook opponent. Meeker looked at the number of photos shared daily on select social media platforms over the past decade.

In 2011, Facebook was averaging about 250 million with no competition. That number hasn’t changed much in the subsequent years, while the number of photos shared on Snapchat has skyrocketed, especially from 2014 to 2015.

Snapchat’s photo-sharing outpaces Facebook and has for the past few years. It’s currently dangerously close to outpacing all of Facebook’s collective properties, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.

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