Does Snapchat’s drop in users spell trouble for the platform?

August 15, 2018

Snapchat’s Q2 report was a bit of a surprise in the industry. It has lost 3 million users compared to the previous quarter. There are various reasons why we saw this coming and we’d put the controversial redesign down as the main reason. A whopping 1.2 million users signed the petition to revoke the redesign, but it seems like another couple of million users gave up altogether.

When it comes to the money, Q2 2018 saw a jump in revenue of 44% compared to Q2 2017. That’s an increase from $182m to $262m.

Given the loss in users, and increase in monetary earnings, it’s become clear that the value of the platform is far more than just the number of users. Twitter has seen a drop in users too – they lost a million monthly users between Q1 to Q2 2018.

We know Snapchat and Instagram are at loggerheads when it comes to features and the overall aim of the image sharing platform. Snap is much more for private communication and image-sharing between friends. Basically, both platforms can thrive simultaneously, it’s not a matter of one or the other.

Snap’s still enticing advertisers with its various monetisation offerings. Storytellers is one of the newest, aiming to pair advertisers with high reach influencers. They also recently introduced unskippable ads.

Don’t forget, Snapchat could still be your go-to platform for advertising to millennials and young adults. Number of users, though important to some degree, seems to be a vanity metrics for Snap, and the platform’s value is much more prominent in earnings and its offerings.

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