One tweet from Kylie Jenner just cost Snapchat more than $1 billion
Snapchat users are not happy with the new update.
Just weeks after rolling out a new update to its app, Snapchat is struggling to win over its users. As celebrities and "influencers" flock to Instagram, one of Snapchat's most famous users has publicly condemned the changes.
Kylie Jenner, who has been with Snapchat since the early days, described the current state of the social network as "so sad".
"Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad," Jenner tweeted late on Wednesday (21 February)
From just one tweet, Snap - the parent company of Snapchat - lost 6.1% of its value overnight. That equates to $1.3 billion USD (£930 million), according to Bloomberg.
The news comes the same week it was revealed that Snapchat founder and CEO Evan Spiegel was given a $637 million bonus in 2017.
Jenner tweeted shortly after "still love you tho snap... my first love."
sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad.
— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) February 21, 2018
still love you tho snap ... my first love
— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) February 21, 2018
Jenner was not the only high-profile Snapchatter to voice concerns. Tech YouTuber MKBHD - who has almost six million subscribers - said he would likely leave the platform in favour of Instagram. "You ever notice you have to hear about celebrity Snapchat accounts from somewhere outside of Snapchat?" the YouTuber said.
"But Instagram has the explore page, it features users, it has hashtags, it has location tags. There are plenty of ways to find new people on Instagram inside of Instagram. I talked to you guys about following me for behind the scenes stuff on Snapchat. 95,000 of you were watching each Snapchat story I posted from behind the scenes and it was worth it.
"Then once, I just decided to try Instagram stories, just on a whim, so I just posted one or two things over there and boom, 400,000 people instantly saw it without me telling anyone about it."
Facebook, the owner of Instagram, attempted to purchase Snapchat in 2013 for a reported $3bn (£2.2bn). Following the failed bid, Mark Zuckerberg set about using Instagram to undercut Snapchat's key features. In August, 2016, Zuckerberg announced that Instagram would launch "Stories" to share a series of videos or photos. It was a near carbon-copy of Snapchat Stories.
Snapchat has struggled over the past two years but a strong fourth quarter in 2017 has given shareholders reason to be optimistic. Revealed in the 2017 fourth quarter earnings report, Snapchat added nine million people. The growth rate (5.05%) was the highest it has been since the third quarter of 2016, when it was 7%.
