Compete With TikTok, Snapchat Spotlight Spectators Increase By 125 Percent

JAKARTA - Snap Inc., parent company Snapchat announced that the total time Snapchat users spend watching Spotlight content increases 125 percent year-on-year.

The number of individual viewers involved with content globally grows year after year, which we believe is an important input to generate revenue, wrote Snap in Investor Letter Q1 2024.

The announcement was made after US President Joe Biden signed a Bill (RUU) on banning the use of TikTok if ByteDance did not sell it within one year.

Snapchat itself launched a TikTok-like feed or so-called Spotlight at the end of 2020 as a way to compete with TikTok's growing popularity.

In addition, Snapchat also has 422 million daily active users in Q1 2024, an increase of 39 million, or 10 percent year-on-year.

In line with the increase in the number of active users, Snapchat+ subscribers have also tripled from year to year, surpassing 9 million subscribers in the quarter.

Snap also plans to continue investing in a generative AI model for lens creation on the platform, noting that the number of ML and AI lenses seen by users is increasing by more than 50 percent year-on-year.

The company has also made significant progress in expanding the reach of its AR technology beyond Snapchat via the Snap AR Camera Kit, which changes the way we shop, engages in sports, tries fashion, interacts with music, and approaches education.

"For example, at the LVIII Super Bowl, the NFL integrated Camera Kit Snapchat technology at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for the first time the Super Bowl hosting stadium integrated the technology," he added.