Jeddah- Meeting with Snap Inc. representatives during their visit to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Asharq Al-Awsat reporters sought details on Arab user base size of the group’s prominent application, SnapChat, especially with the app becoming increasingly popular among youths.

Ben Schwerin, VP of partnerships at Snapchat, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the application now offers new features related to the music industry, which facilitates the search and find of songs, and music artists.

Shazam and Snapchat had announced a partnership that allows Snapchatters to use Shazam’s music recognition technology by pressing and holding the camera screen. The Snapchat app will then listen for nearby audio, and you can send the recognized song as a snap to friends. The new feature comes as part of a Snapchat update that brings group messaging to the platform.

Users love the app because it offers a natural and entertaining way to connect with friends and grants access to worldwide content, said Schwerin.

He pointed out that the number of daily SnapChat users in Saudi Arabia alone has reached 7 million, while the number reaches one million in the United Arab Emirates, with 158 million active users a day around the world, and more than 2.5 global billion SnapChats found daily.

Over 60 percent of active SnapChatters rely on their camera feature to produce daily content, with the worldwide application time consumption ranging from 25 to 30 minutes a day.

All new features that developers add to the application are immediately available for Android and iOS devices, Schwerin added.

He also confirmed that the company values privacy and does hold record of any uploaded content by any user.