Vanishing app: Snapchat struggles as Facebook bites back

Losses are steep and user growth is anaemic leaving investors fearful the latest 'new Facebook' has run out of steam

Is Snapchat - the social media app famous for its disappearing messages - in danger of doing a vanishing act of its own? It's a question some are asking after investors turned on the company again this week following a second set of poor results which have turned a once-hot tech company into a stock market casualty.

The losses alone were steep. Snapchat's parent, Snap Inc, lost $443m over the last three months, compared with $116m in the same period a year ago. Young tech companies are expected to burn through cash at a prodigious rate as they chase customers, but the main worry for shareholders was anaemic user growth, missed revenue targets and the threat from Facebook and Google - both of which have copied some of Snapchat's key features. Imitation may well be the most sincere form of flattery, but in this case it could also be the most deadly.