San Francisco, April 22 (IANS) Snap, the parent company of popular social media platform Snapchat, saw its stock up nearly 20 per cent after its first quarter revenue increased 44 per cent (year-over-year) to $462 million, along with Snapchat's daily active user base reaching 229 million, which is up 20 per cent from last year.

DAUs increased sequentially and year-over-year in each of North America, Europe, and rest of the world on both iOS and Android platforms.

On average, more than 4 billion Snaps were created each day in Q1 2020.

"We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community and partners during this difficult time," Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said in a statement.

"Snapchat is helping people stay close to their friends and family while they are separated physically, and I am proud of our team for overcoming the many challenges of working from home during this time while we continue to grow our business and support those who are impacted by COVID-19,' he added.

Total daily time spent by Snapchatters watching Discover content increased by over 35 per cent year-over-year in Q1 2020.

"Total daily time spent by Snapchatters watching Shows more than doubled compared to Q1 2019. In Q1 2020, over 60 Shows reached a monthly audience of over 10 million viewers, up from 50 Shows in Q4 2019," the company informed.

The company said it will continue to invest in its camera and augmented reality platforms.

"Over 75 per cent of our daily active users engage with augmented reality every day on average. At the end of Q1 2020, over 900,000 Lenses had been created by our community through Lens Studio, up from over 700,000 at the end of Q4 2019," informed Snap.

As people turn to videoconferencing and livestreaming to connect with friends and family, Snap have seen more than a 30 times increase in the daily downloads of Snap Camera, a desktop app which allows people to add our entire suite of Lenses to whichever video service they use.

Snap also launched App Stories, which brings its popular Stories feature to apps created by third-party software developers.
It launched five new games globally, the most in any quarter since launch.

"Communication with friends increased by over 30 per cent in the last week of March compared to the last week of January, with more than a 50 per cent increase in some of the geographies that were most impacted," with COVID-19 pandemic.

The company said that given the uncertainties related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the rapidly shifting macro conditions, it will not provide expectations for revenue for the second quarter of 2020.

--IANS na/