Snapchat has 39% of its users in the age of 18-24, out of which 71% use Snapchat many times in a day.

53.4% of the mobile audience in the US use Snapchat. A study by Pew Research found that 63% of the users visit Snapchat daily, and this is almost the same as Instagram. 82% of the 18-24 years visit Snapchat daily, out of which 71% visit the platform several times a day.

The number of daily snaps in a day touched 3.5 billion in Q2 2019. A user spends on an average 25 to 30 minutes in a day on Snapchat. Users aged 25 and above visited Snapchat around 12 times and spent 20 minutes daily while users below 25 visited Snapchat about 20 times to spend 30 minutes on the platform.

Usage pattern of Snapchat

Snapchat users are quite a young crowd. 34% prefer to use Snapchat as a platform to hang out with friends.19% of the users try it for shopping, and 14% use it for social events. Snapchat also gives good conversions for businesses. 1 in 5 of Snapchat users ends up purchasing the products they see on Snapchat.

Age group usage pattern:

Data from Pew Research Center social media statistics show the majority of the Snapchat users in the US are young. As the age group increases, the number of Snapchat users fall proportionately. 73% of people in the age group of 18-24 use Snapchat, while only 47% in the age group of 25-29 use Snapchat. This figure continues to fall as the age increases. Out of the people in the age group of 50-64, only 9% use Snapchat, and of people over 65, only 3% use Snapchat.

Considering the recent data of 2018, 93.5% of people in the age group of 18-24 use Snapchat while Snapchat users in the age group of 12-17 come to 92.2%. The popularity of Snapchat falls considerably as age goes up, and only 26% of people in the age group of 35-44 use Snapchat.

Even the college crowd in the US love Snapchat with 20% of students using Snapchat .50% of the male students love to use Snapchat for sharing selfies. The female students who use Snapchat for sharing selfies are even higher and come to 77%

13-24 years old contribute to 90% of Snapchat users, and 75% of the users are below 35 years.

• Snapchat is using by 24% of adults in the US
• Snapchat is accessed daily by 61% of the users
• Snapchat is used on an average for 40 minutes daily by users below 25. Even Instagram doesn’t get the users to spend this amount of time on it.
• Out of the smartphone users in the UK, more than 37.5% use Snapchat, and in Norway 50% of smartphone users use Snapchat
• Globally, in Saudi Arabia, Ireland and Sweden have high levels of Snapchat usage especially in people aged 16 and above
• 90% of the US population in the age group of 13-24 use Snapchat. Of the people in the age group of 13-34 years 75% use Snapchat

Recent Innovations of Snapchat

Snapchat success story started showing signs of slowing down in growth with the boom of Instagram. However, innovations in AR helped Snapchat to recover a bit in 2019. AR filters enhance the filming capacity of Snapchat lenses. According to the Snapchat Q2 2019 report, within the first couple of weeks after release, around 200 million of the users tried out the latest AR lens. The number of users who submit new lens grew by 20% compared to the previous quarter.  As per available statistics, an estimated 50,000 lenses have created until now by the users. Thus, the engagement with Snapchat lens increased tremendously in Q2 of 2019 compared to 2018.

Recently Snapchat also introduced several other innovations to improve the user experience like Scan, AR Bar, Landmarkers and Shoppable AR Lenses.  The Scan feature helps you to solve mathematical problems and also to create GIFs of the objects it scans. AR Bar functionality helps users search and find lenses.

Landmarkers is yet another useful feature which animates the important landmarks in the world. Creator profile is a nifty tool to help Snapchat users view the creators and lenses and also check out their content. The Shoppable AR Lenses introduced by Snapchat in 2018 helps users to buy their favorite items online through Snapchat.

Snapchat is also trying to increase user engagement by utilizing gaming in the platform. Users can unlock trophies which are mostly emojis, on completing specific tasks, when they use the filter, or when they send snaps or post videos on the Live page. To improve the gaming aspect further, Snapchat has also recently launched Snappables, an AR selfie games.

Snapchat’s Growth, Revenue, and Future

Snapchat had enjoyed massive growth in its initial years.  Though recently it has experienced a slow down due to the tight competition from other social media platforms, it is still popular among the masses.  As per the industry experts, it still holds the potential to bounce back. 

The advertising revenue of Snapchat is expected to reach $1534.2 million in 2019 and further projected to go up to $2117.2 million by 2020. The annual growth revenue of Snapchat is 39%. Snapchat generated revenue of $320.4 million in Q2 2019.

The revenue from advertising has been increasing every year. In 2016 Snapchat generated 96% of its revenue from advertising. This share of advertising increased to 97% in 2017 and again increased in 2019, with advertising contributing to 99% of the revenue.

Introduction of Discover:

Snapchat has been trying to woo more advertisers into the platform to increase the advertising revenue. To this end, Snapchat introduced Discover in 2015. Using Discover, users can browse content from Snapchat partners like CNN. It allows Snapchat to sell ad space within the content of the partner. Initially, these ads had a price tag of $750,000 a day. Recently the pricing has fallen drastically, and the ads can now purchase for as low as $50,000.

Snapchat again innovated with Snap Ads where the advertisers can purchase these short videos at a lower price. Since the click-through rate is five times higher for these ads, this is expected to boost the advertising revenue of Snapchat.

Snapchat Vs. Competitors:

In June 2018 Snapchat’s CPM was $2.95 per thousand impressions. It was quite low compared to $4.20 of Instagram and $5.12 of the Facebook mobile app. It is the latter part of 2018 that recorded an increase in the ad price of Snapchat. This increase can attribute to the introduction of programmatic bidding.

Sponsored lenses:

Sponsored lenses are the most expensive to buy in Snapchat’s advertising kitty. The starting price is $450,000 and can go up to $700,000 during special events.  As per the plan, the advertisers can buy also buy six seconds of ads. These ads are non-skippable and appear in between Snapchat Originals or Snap Games.

However, the success story of Snapchat is not without pitfalls. Experts believe that Snapchat is going slow down as far as user growth is concerned. By 2023 it is expected that Snapchat can acquire only 600K new users from the US. One of the main reasons for this slack could be the emergence of Instagram as a preferred social media platform. Instagram stories are finding more acceptance among users, especially women and the younger generation. The engagement for Snapchat stories has reduced by 15-40% after the launch of Instagram stories.

Majority of the influencers also prefer Instagram over Snapchat. Study shows that influencers are posting 2 times more Instagram stories compared to Snapchat stories. It is primarily because of Instagram updating itself continuously to keep in pace with the audience interests, and hence influencers find it to be more useful compared to Snapchat.

But whatever it is, Snapchat is not going to disappear shortly. It remains to be a preferred platform globally and especially among teens.  Future projections for Snapchat say that this platform will gain 1.2 million more followers aged 12-17 by 2022. Snapchat will remain a favorite of the younger generation and holds an immense marketing potential for taping business.

Wherever you are and whatever you are up to, Snapchat lets you share a snap with a friend and no worries it got automatically deleted. So, feel free to share the fun with friends because the content you share will disappear forever without leaving a trace behind.

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