Snapchat's user base will overtake Facebook's among 18 to 24 year-olds in the UK before 2018 is out.

According to eMarketer's latest forecast on social network usage, the number of Snapchat users in the UK will reach 16.2 million by the end of the year. Around 31% (or 5 million) will be in the younger age bracket.

The forecast comes after parent firm Snap recently hit a turning point, suffering a reversal in overall users of its flagship app.

The first dip since the company’s formation in 2011 saw user growth decline in the second quarter of 2018 by 2%.

This brought Snapchat's daily count down to 188 million from 191 million on the previous quarter, contributing to a $353m loss for the same period; however eMarketer's outlook signals that more buoyant times lie ahead for the Venice Beach-based firm.

The report claims that the number of UK Facebook users in that demographic will sit at 4.5 million – a decrease of 1.8% on 2017.

Despite sluggish growth in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook is still adding monthly users overall, however older age groups are mainly responsible for this.

As such, eMarketer predicts there will be 32.7 million Facebook users in the UK this year, up 2.0% over 2017.

Although Instagram is growing its younger user base, it is still lagging behind Snapchat with a forecast of 4.2 million, while just 2.6 million 18 to 24-year-olds will use Twitter.

The stats suggest that many younger social network users are forgoing Facebook altogether in favor of more appealing mobile-first alternatives.

“These so-called Facebook-nevers are eating into Facebook’s user growth significantly,” eMarketer senior analyst Bill Fisher said.

“And while the media giant's Instagram purchase looks to have been a shrewd move in as much that it’s picking up [a bigger share] of that young user base, it’s struggling to hold onto the coattails of Snapchat among these cohorts.”