Snapchat Stock Price Dives After Facebook Announces 250M Daily Instagram Story Users

Snap Inc. shares took a dive Tuesday following news from Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s global head of sales, that Instagram stories had officially reached 250 million daily active users, CNBC reported. Facebook purchased Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion. An Instagram spokesperson confirmed the gain in daily users to International Business Times.

Snap opened the day Tuesday at $17.82 a share, and dropped nearly 3 percent by noon after Instagram/Facebook’s announcement. This drop erased the gains Snap made on the market Monday after a collaboration between the app and Time Warner was announced. The collaboration will result in shows made solely for Snapchat and is valued around $100 million.

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The Snapchat competitor, Instagram Stories, was released last August and has gained users rapidly since. In April, less than a year after “Stories” launched, the social media company announced it had 200 million daily average users on the stories feature. It took Instagram stories just over two months to gain 50 million more daily users. The two apps have been competing for users with constant updates. Last month, Snapchat said it had 166 million daily active users in its first investors report since going public in March. Then it was within 50 million users of Instagram stories, a margin that has now almost doubled.

Both Instagram Stories and Snapchat serve as disappearing message platforms that use photos to connect users. They both allow users to send disappearing images to friends over the app or post those images to their “story.” Instagram has been accused of copying Snapchat, but at the F8 conference in April, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the camera technology is serving as groundwork for augmented reality operations Facebook plans to launch on its platforms. Both Instagram and Snapchat have introduced levels of augmented reality to the apps for users to try out in recent months. Snapchat added “world lenses” that appear to be three-dimensional when added in photos or videos on the app.

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Facebook’s shares opened Tuesday at $152.82 and at noon was up to $153 per share. In addition to releasing the news about daily users, Instagram introduced an update to the app as well. The update to the app allows users to share a replay of live video to the stories feature. This is something Snapchat doesn’t offer users, the ability to broadcast live to friends on the app is unique to Instagram and Facebook.

Instagram has 700 million users worldwide, a statistic the company released in April noting the last 100 million users joined more quickly than ever. The app has an increasingly global reach, which it is trying to grow by adding offline features to make the app more appealing to those who live in areas where the networks aren’t as strong.