Skip to main content

Snapchat users share 400 million images a day, as the app surpasses Facebook photo uploads

comes photo uploads snapchat facebook beat 1
Image used with permission by copyright holder

I still don’t know whether Snapchat’s rejection of Facebook’s whopping $3 billion buyout was a startup bubble-induced act of stupid hubris or a savvy, forward-thinking rejection that will eventually be vindicated, but this much is clear: When it comes to getting people to upload photographs, Snapchat has already surpassed Facebook.

A Snapchat representative told Business Insider that users are sending over 400 million snaps a day, while sources at Facebook confirmed that users upload around 350 million photos a day to the larger social network. Previously, this fall Snapchat reported users were uploading 350 million, but it appears the number has risen significantly – very quickly. And Snapchat has had more photo uploads than Instagram since last May, but now Snapchat’s numbers dwarf Instagram, which reports 55 million uploads. 

Of course, there’s a big difference in uploading a photograph to Snapchat and putting one on Facebook. Snapchat’s photos are only displayed for a matter of seconds, or a day if a user chooses to include an image in their “Snapchat Stories” profile. The images are meant to be temporary, and often shared with one person or a small group. When people upload images to Facebook, they’re usually meant to be shared with a wider circle, and Facebook friends can access the photos as long as the uploader wants. It’s a more permanent option for displaying media on a digital platform. Also, most obviously, there’s only one thing to do on Snapchat: Upload and share photos. There’s far more options on Facebook, so activity time in total might be a fairer statistic to measure and compare. 

The platform differences are important to note, but that doesn’t diminish this accomplishment for Snapchat. The user base is much smaller than Facebook’s, so this means that the average Snapchat user is sharing many more images than the average Facebook user — it’s a younger platform with different ambitions, but the people who are using it are using it heavily — and as Snapchat continues to grow, the discrepancy between the amount of photos uploaded to Facebook and to Snapchat will also likely continue to grow, unless Facebook develops a new way for users to engage with media that catches on. 

Editors' Recommendations

Kate Knibbs
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kate Knibbs is a writer from Chicago. She is very happy that her borderline-unhealthy Internet habits are rewarded with a…
X rival Threads could be about to get millions of more users
Instagram Threads app.

Threads -- Meta’s rival to X, formerly Twitter -- has just launched in the European Union (EU), a market with nearly half a billion people.

The app launched in the U.S. to much fanfare in July, with Meta hoping to attract X users disillusioned with the turbulence on the platform since Elon Musk acquired it for $44 billion 14 months ago.

Read more
X (formerly Twitter) returns after global outage
A white X on a black background, which could be Twitter's new logo.

X, formerly known as Twitter, went down for about 90 minutes for users worldwide early on Thursday ET.

Anyone opening the social media app across all platforms was met with a blank timeline. On desktop, users saw a message that simply read, "Welcome to X," while on mobile the app showed suggestions for accounts to follow.

Read more
How to create multiple profiles on a Facebook account
A series of social media app icons on a colorful smartphone screen.

Facebook (and, by extension, Meta) are particular in the way that they allow users to create accounts and interact with their platform. Being the opposite of the typical anonymous service, Facebook sticks to the rule of one account per one person. However, Facebook allows its users to create multiple profiles that are all linked to one main Facebook account.

In much the same way as Japanese philosophy tells us we have three faces — one to show the world, one to show family, and one to show no one but ourselves — these profiles allow us to put a different 'face' out to different aspects or hobbies. One profile can keep tabs on your friends, while another goes hardcore into networking and selling tech on Facebook Marketplace.

Read more