Snapchat Adds 13M More Daily Users in Q3, Now up to 500M Monthly Actives Snapchat has posted a file Latest earnings report showing steady increases in users and revenue, with the platform continuing to see strong participation in markets outside the US, and continued growth of the TikTok-like Spotlight option.
First, on usage — in the third quarter, Snapchat rose to 306 million daily active users, the first time it passed 300 million DAU.
It’s the app The fourth quarter in a row saw more than 20% year-over-year usage growth, and Snap saw its biggest uptick, again, in the “rest of the world” category, which grew by 10 million in the period.
Snap has seen particularly strong growth in India this year, with more Indian users coming online, and digital connectivity developing in the region. This helped Snap expand its opportunities, while Snap CEO Evan Spiegel also takes note That the number of monthly active users of the app now exceeds 500 million:
“Including more than 75% of those between the ages of 13 and 34 in the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands.”
Snap’s reach to younger demographics is huge and remains a key ingredient to its success. In terms of specific usage trends, however, Snap notes that user-generated stories continue to see year-over-year decreases in total time spent.
Where Snap is seeing success with Spotlight, its short video option, and Discover programming, which continues to grow in usage.
Snap says daily Spotlight uploads have more than doubled over the last quarter, while the time each user spends with the option continues to increase.
Part of that growth was Snapchat’s Spotlight Funding Program, which initially saw $1 million in total cash prizes allocated each day to top-performing Spotlight clips. pop This approach was revised in June becoming more obscure “Millions per month” payments This update has helped reduce overall costs for Snap, while Spotlight engagement continues to grow, a good sign for the job, and the funding program is a starting point for sharing.
Recently, Snap announced another review of its Spotlight payments, which will see users pay for participating in more guided Spotlight challenges, which could be a way to better guide user behavior, and generate more engagement with the option. Either way, Spotlight’s steady growth underscores once again TikTok’s broader influence on in-app sharing, and how users are increasingly looking to share on social platforms.
Meanwhile, Snap’s Discover programming continues to attract more viewers.
according to pop:
“Our content partners continue to find success on our platform, with 15 different partners each reaching over 50 million users on Snapchat this quarter. Two of our original Snap releases launched this quarter, “Meme Mom” and “Honestly Loren,” each reaching over 10 million viewers.
Expanding on this, Snap announced A new round of Discover shows This week, including, interestingly, a new show with TikTok influencer Addison Rae.
Snap has also worked with Charli D’Amelio on exclusive content, another star who has found fame on TikTok, and it will be interesting to see if Snap continues to poach talent from TikTok, in an effort to boost the use of Discover on the back of TikTok’s popularity and reach.
“We’re also bringing more locally relevant content as our community grows around the world. In France, we’ve partnered with M6, the first major French broadcast partner for entertainment content, to bring 400 episodes of their TV shows to Snapchat. In the MENA region, we’ve partnered with ITP Media Group to present over 200 episodes of a show from some of the region’s biggest and most influential creators.”
This local programming provides another way for Snap to build traction in more markets, and as you can see from the graph of average app revenue per user, it still has plenty of opportunity to expand its revenue potential into more regions.
In terms of total revenue, Snapchat had its first-ever quarter of over $1 billion in revenue, highlighting the solidification of its advertising ecosystem.
And again you can see the potential, with the vast majority of Snap’s revenue coming from the US, while it’s still building its presence in other markets. It has held steady, but there are more opportunities to come, which is a good sign of Snap’s continued success.
One of the main barriers to greater revenue growth, however, has been Apple’s data restriction for the ATT update, which Snap says has had a bigger impact than it expected.
Apple introduced the new [alternative] The measurement solution hasn’t evolved as we expected, which makes it even more challenging for our advertising partners to measure and manage their iOS ad campaigns. We’ve remained very focused on increasing our ad partners’ return on investment, continue to see strong and consistent performance on our ad platform based on first-party data and conversion optimization studies, and are building flexible first-party tooling and measurement solutions to meet the diverse needs of our ad partners.”
In order to mitigate these effects, Snapchat says it’s focused on developing additional, privacy-safe first-party solutions to help advertising partners effectively measure their campaigns within the parameters of Apple’s new restrictions. And it’s really every platform that’s now evolving in light of the new ad targeting limits.
Spiegel also gave a slight nod to Snap’s AR-enabled glasses in his premade remarks, though there’s no word on a release date yet.
“In the long term, we are investing in new ways people can interact with the physical world around them, including using our augmented reality-enabled glasses.”
Competition is heating up in this area, with Facebook launching its collaboration with Ray Ban Stories, which is not yet AR-enabled, while Apple is also reportedly About to launch its first augmented reality glasses is very. Given the huge disparity in resources, you’d expect Snap to be a fair way behind the bigger players in AR glasses development, but the company has remained at the forefront of the AR transformation and could be well-positioned to capitalize on the next phase as well, with the upcoming Spectacles update.
It’s a very good report for Snap, with solid results, despite the challenges, and good indications about engagement growth. Over time, the app has found its niche, and given the prominent role it now plays in connecting younger audiences, and the ongoing development of its augmented reality tools, there’s a lot to like about Snap’s ongoing capabilities.
