Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
An employee wears a Snapchat ghost shirt and Snapchat Spectacles by Snap Inc. while crossing the street outside the company’s office in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.
Snap recently went public and investors are trying to figure out whether the company has long-term growth, or whether it is facing stiff competition from the likes of Facebook. For now however, millennials, who are the core users of the platform, still love it.
Four out of eight of the panelists said Snap was their preferred social platform, followed by Instagram (2 out of 8). The millennials said they send about 10-50 snaps per day with the group citing the lenses that allow you to transform your face into a dog for instance, and the fact that fewer parents are on the platform, as key reasons for liking Snapchat. And one panelist said the adverts on Facebook are putting him off the platform.
“The thing that Facebook changed for me, is that it’s a lot of ads now and it’s a lot of things I don’t really care about … I see so much of what other people are doing, it’s annoying to me,” he said.
Snap’s share price has had a rollercoaster ride in the first few days of trade and it faces intense competition from Facebook, which has already copied many of its features. This has left many analysts concerned about the future potential of the company. Despite millennials not taking a liking to Spectacles just yet, Munster concluded that camera hardware could be a way for Snap to beat the competition.
“Snap has the lead and, more importantly, Snap has won the trust of the college demographic. If Snap puts something out, it will likely catch on,” Munster wrote in a note on Thursday.
“We believe the camera is at the center of how Snap must advance the platform with new devices and new features to stay ahead of Facebook’s improved filters. If Snap slows on its vision as a camera company, Facebook will likely catch them.”
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is an investor in Snap.
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