Snap has just disclosed its quarterly earnings, and they are somewhat mixed.
During the second quarter, the parent company of Snapchat generated $1.07 billion — an increase from the previous quarter but a decrease from the previous year.
In its first quarter as a public company, Snap’s revenue decreased by 7% from the previous year. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel stated at the time that the change did not reflect the company’s goals.
In the second quarter, Snapchat’s daily active users increased by 14% year-over-year to 397 million.
Snap, like its competitors, continues to experience a decline in advertising revenue due to intense competition from rivals such as TikTok and Instagram and changes to Apple’s app privacy policies that initially took social media companies for a loop.
In recent months, Snapchat has introduced a slew of new AI features, some of which are exclusive to its paid subscribers, in an effort to maintain its platform’s vitality and user engagement.
My AI, Snap’s artificial intelligence chatbot, is now integrated into the app’s group conversations, place recommendations, and Lens suggestions.
Snapchat introduced paid subscriptions a year ago, charging users $3.99 per month for access to a variety of premium features. Snap’s premium Snapchat+ service — a center for “exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features” — has amassed over 4 million paid subscribers.
Paid memberships and premium categories were once abhorrent to social media companies intent on squeezing every last ad dollar out of their users, but this attitude has shifted in recent years, especially after Apple’s policy changes restricted how closely platforms could track user behavior.
