Snap continues to add new users

After struggling to grow its user base for awhile, Snap has recently managed to make some headway in that mission. Its last earnings report showed the company managed to grow its daily active user (DAU) number seven percent over the quarter prior. From its third-quarter results released today, it appears Snap is continuing to do well. In the last quarter, the company managed to add 7 million users. Today, Snap is reporting that its DAUs have increased by 13 percent from the same period last year, with a total of 210 million users to date.

Snap also managed to grow its revenue by 50 percent from the same quarter last year, making $446 million over the previous $296 million. Overall, though, the company is still not profitable, reporting a loss of $227 million in Q3 2019. That's still an improvement from the $323 million it lost in the same period last year.

In prepared remarks accompanying the results, CEO Evan Spiegel attributed the user growth to "the value we provide to our community." These include things like "a mobile content platform, an augmented reality platform, a social map, and most recently, a new gaming platform," he added. Snap has continued to add media partners to its Discover platform, which now sees more than 10 million monthly viewers in Q3 across 100 channels.

Much of the user growth in the past two quarters also has to do with the company redesigning its Android app. Spiegel noted that Snapchat is now "more performant on a wider variety of devices," helping the company "substantially increase the rate at which we onboard new Android users."

This quarter, the company also announced its new hardware product, the Spectacles 3. These build upon the video-recording glasses by focusing on adding AR effects to the footage captured. They also target a different audience, and are meant for creators and 3D artists rather than your average Snapchatter. They won't be available for the mass market, though. In his prepared remarks, Spiegel said "We are building low volumes of Spectacles 3 and using this iteration to test and learn more about wearable computing." He also called the device "an important step forward towards an augmented reality future."

Spiegel spelled out what Snap will be working on in the next decade. Within the next three years, the company wants to make it easier to create and monetize Snapchat and AR content. In the next three to five years, it plans to keep improving and scaling, and find ways to monetize its maps and gaming platforms.

Finally, over the next seven to ten years, the company wants to "realize our vision of computing overlaid on the world through wearable augmented reality." Clearly, AR glasses will play a large role in the latter part of that vision. Snap has yet to turn a profit, but at least the company has now shared some plans on where it expects to bring its business in the years to come, which should provide investors some clarity. Spiegel will be answering questions on today's earnings call, and we'll be listening to see if he has any other details to share and will update this post with anything we hear.