Snapchat shares soar 44% on first day of trading, valuation $28 billion

Snap Inc, the parent company of messaging app Snapchat, has gone public with stocks soaring 44 per cent on their first day of trading and valuing the company at $28 billion, the media reported on Friday.

Shortly after co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy on Thursday rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange, the company's share price rose 41 per cent from its guide price of $17 a share to an opening price of $24, The Guardian reported.

The stock closed at $24.48, giving the company a market value of $28.3 billion. At one point it reached $26.05 and a market value of $29.1 billion.

The young company, founded in 2012, posted a $515 million loss last year.

According to Snapchat, 158 million people use the service each day and create 2.5 billion "snaps" between them.

User numbers are far below Facebook's 1 billion-plus but the average user is younger and spends about 30 minutes a day on the service, the daily said.

The app, which was designed for mobile devices, is not about typing but about sharing pictures and videos and applying often surreal filters to images.

More recently the company has expanded into hardware, launching video-capturing spectacles.