Instagram said its popular Stories feature now has 400 million daily users, which is twice as many users compared to Snapchat’s 191 million, citing Instagram and Snapchat’s first-quarter report, respectively.

Instagram is proving to be a strong competitor in the social media realm, rapidly winning over users from not only rival social media platforms, such as Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube, but even its parent company Facebook. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has bought companies that posed the biggest threats to Facebook, such as Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, according to reports.

When Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat not once but twice, offering approximately $60 million during Snap’s early stages, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel reportedly declined.

In August 2016, Zuckerberg launched Instagram Stories that boasted similar features to Snapchat’s picture-based, self-deleting messaging system. In addition to the self-deleting function in 24 hours, Instagram Stories has been racing to beat Snapchat, enhancing its features with filters such as cute bunny ears and flower crowns, and emoji slider stickers.

With the latest upgrade, Stories allows users to liven up their stories with popular soundtracks from various artists. Instagram also introduced the Instagram TV (IGTV) feature last Wednesday, mounting a fresh challenge to Google’s YouTube.

By Catherine Chung (cec82@heraldcorp.com)