Wall Street doesn’t seem to care what Kylie Jenner thinks. Despite Jenner’s – and many users’ –criticism of its redesign, Snap shares went up about 5 percent on Wednesday, while its download rates remain strong.
According to CNBC, while shares fell more than 7 percent over the past week, they came back up on Wednesday.
Snap’s redesign hasn’t been met with much enthusiasm from its core customer base, who started an online petition to get the company to remove the update.
“There is a general level of annoyance among users and many have decided to use a VPN app, or are using other risky apps or steps, to go back to the old Snapchat, as that’s how annoying this new update has become,” the petition read.
And, of course, there was this tweet from Jenner: “sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad.”
But despite the negative press, data firm App Annie reported that Snap’s download rates are still strong.
In addition, advertising intelligence company Media Radar estimated that advertisers will spend around $1.7 billion on Snapchat campaigns this year. Nike has already released a pair of new Air Jordan sneakers on Snapchat last month – and the shoes sold out in just 23 minutes.
These reports are sure to be a relief for Snap, as sales estimates have been declining since its initial public offering in March, with shares dropping more than 10 percent. Despite this, Tencent announced in November that it increased its stake in Snap by more than 12 percent.
Regarding the redesign of its app, Snap acknowledged that there might be a few bumps in the road as users adjust to the changes.
“There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don’t yet know how the behavior of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application,” CEO Evan Spiegel said. “We’re willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial long-term benefits to our business.”