Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed daily active user numbers for Instagram Stories and WhatsApp Status each reached 300 million as the services continue to gain traction.
Revealing the stats in an earnings call for Facebook’s Q3 results, Zuckerberg added photo sharing app Instagram now has 500 million daily active users alone, meaning more than half are using the Stories feature.
Facebook did not provide an update for overall WhatsApp figures from the 1 billion daily active users figure it revealed in Q2, but its Status feature was boosted by 50 million additions from the period.
Instagram Stories launched in August 2016, and was deemed as a copy of social media rival Snapchat Stories, but its growth suggested the feature could prove vital to the long-term future of the app itself.
The 300 million figure also represents an increase of 50 million users from the figure reported in Facebook’s Q2 and, more significantly, Instagram Stories’ user base is almost double that of Snapchat.
Snap said in August it had 173 million daily active users.
Video growth crucial
During the call, Zuckerberg said over the next three years the biggest trend in Facebook products will be the growth of video.
“This goes both for sharing, where we’ve seen Stories in Instagram and Status in WhatsApp grow very quickly, each with more than 300 million daily actives, and also for consuming video content.”
He also talked up Watch, a video platform launched in August which pits the social media giant against companies including YouTube and Netflix by featuring original content created by partner publishers.
Zuckerberg was quick to point out Facebook’s main goal was to bring people closer to together and enable meaningful social interaction as video grows, an approach which is not primarily “about consuming content passively”.
Overall, Facebook’s daily users also increased to 1.37 billion, while its monthly active user base hit 2.07 billion.
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