It probably pains Snapchat to hear how many people enjoy Snapchat features on apps created by one of its biggest rivals, but that’s exactly what’s happening these days. For a while now, Facebook has been adding Snapchat-like features to its mobile apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. It appears that strategy worked quite well for the company, especially on Instagram.
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According to Instagram, more than 200 million people use Instagram Stories every day. The company released the number while announcing new sticker features for Instagram Stories, the feature that’s competing directly against Snapchat.
Instagram has a lot more than 200 million daily users — the number is north of 600 million — but it looks like Facebook wanted to highlight only the Stories-related number in its announcement. Comparatively, Snapchat had 158 million users as of the fourth quarter of 2016. As The Verge points out, not all of them were users of Snapchat’s own Stories feature.
A few days ago, Instagram announced Direct, a new feature that competes against Snapchat’s core features, allowing users to send ephemeral messages, including video and pictures.
On Thursday, Instagram unveiled new sticker options, including selfie stickers that let you turn your selfies into stickers for other photos, and geostickers that’ll inform your followers about your whereabouts. Finally, there’s a new shortcut for your favorite stickers and a hands-free mode for recording video.
To get the new features, update your iPhone and Android Instagram apps to versions 10.16 and 10.16.1, respectively.
