Facebook Vs. Twitter Vs. Snapchat: How Do Key Statistics Compare?

With the reporting season being over for social media companies, it may be time to take stock of how the major platforms performed through the lens of key metrics.

After a wave of scandals in 2018, Facebook, Inc. FB redeemed itself credibly by reporting forecast-beating fourth-quarter results. 

Notwithstanding Twitter Inc TWTR's earnings beat, the stock came under pressure due to the company's guidance for a spike in spending in 2019.

Snap Inc SNAP, which owns the ephemeral sharing platform Snapchat, also turned in encouraging Q4 results. 

Facebook Head And Shoulders Above The Rest

Daily active users, or DAUs, are a key measure of user engagement. Twitter released its DAUs for the first time, reporting monetizable DAUs of 126 million as of December 2018, representing 10-percent year-over-year growth.

Facebook's DAUs climbed 9 percent year-over-year to 1.52 billion, while Snapchat's edged down 0.5 percent to 186 million.

Monthly active users, or MAUs, for each of the platforms are as follows:

• Facebook: 2.32 billion, up 9 percent year-over-year.
• Twitter: 321 million, down 2.7 percent.

The divergence of user growth between MAUs and DAUs for Twitter is due to ongoing platform challenges, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said in his earnings review.

Twitter's decline in MAU was due to product changes that limited email notifications; the impact of health initiatives; foregoing paid SMS carrier relationships in certain territories; and, to a lesser extent, GDPR in Europe, the analyst said. 

About 66 percent of Facebook's MAUs visit the platform daily; the figure is a mere 39.2 percent for Twitter. 

Source: Statista

Notwithstanding Facebook's standout user statistics, the slowdown in user additions in its major market of North America is cited as a concern, as the region generates the highest average revenue per user for the company.

Snapchat Ad Revenue Grows The Fastest

Facebook's ad revenue comprised 98.4 percent of the company's total revenue of $16.914 billion. The platform's revenue climbed 30 percent year-over-year.

Twitter reported ad revenue of $791 million, up 23 percent. Ad revenue accounted for 87 percent of the total, while data licensing and other revenue accounted for the rest.

For Snapchat, ad revenue represented 99 percent of the total revenue of $390 million, which grew 36 percent year-over-year.

Twitter appears to be struggling with slower user growth. Although revenue growth could decelerate and margins may compress near-term, analysts expect the platform's investments to pay off in the long term.

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