Snapchat records user growth again for the first time
After a long period of stagnation, the photo app Snapchat is once again able to attract significantly more users. In the last quarter, the number of daily active users grew from 190 to 203 million within three months, as the operator Snap announced on Tuesday.
It was the biggest increase since Snap's IPO in 2017. Last year, the user base was stuck below 190 million, and that sparked massive concerns among investors about Snapchat's future prospects.
The app was once known primarily for its photos that disappear on their own and, with its popularity among young users in particular, was seen as a future challenger to Facebook and Instagram. But then growth slowed sharply and an attempt to attract more older users by rebuilding the app failed.
The now significant growth could be related to the fact that Snapchat was finally able to fix the permanent problems with its Android app. According to the company, however, they were also largely due to the introduction of new photo filters.
In North America, Snapchat increased its user base from 80 to 83 million, in Europe from 61 to 64 million, and in the rest of the world even more significantly from 49 to 56 million.
A high number of users is important for Snapchat - it helps to convince advertisers. Facebook's photo platform Instagram, which is considered a key competitor of Snapchat, has more than one billion users.
Snap increased its revenue in the second quarter by 48 percent year-on-year to $388 million. The bottom line remained in the red - but the loss of just under 255.2 million dollars was significantly lower than the previous year's loss of 353.3 million. Investors rewarded the progress with a share price jump of more than nine percent in after-hours trading. (sda)
