Snapchat expects to generate up to $350 million in revenue this year

Snapchat is on target to generate between $300 million and $350 million in revenue this year, according to a report in Recode citing anonymous sources.

That would represent a nice uptick from the $50 million that Snapchat had reportedly set as its 2015 revenue target, and the latest indication that the social networking tool of choice for the millennial generation is turning its popularity into a real business.

Snapchat has created various advertising offerings on its mobile app, including ads that appear alongside its Live Stories as well as sponsored lenses that users of the service can gussy up their photos with.

For a company with a $16 billion valuation, Snapchat's revenue is still in nascent stages. But investors are betting that Snapchat's popularity with young users will give it a solid foundation to turn on the money jets in the coming years, as Facebook did before it. In fact, Snapchat recently hired Facebook advertising tech executive Sriram Krishnan to help it develop self-serve ads.

Snapchat did not immediately return a request for comment.

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