Photo Credit: Souvik Banerjee
Snapchat announces reaching the 750 million active monthly user milestone at Snap’s Investor Day event.
At its Investor Day event on Thursday, Snap shared that Snapchat has grown to over 750 million monthly active users, 150 million of which are in North America. The company reports that it sees a path to reaching over 1 billion users within the next three years.
Snap teased new offerings in the form of products, including its 3D Snap Map and a recently launched feature called Communities that allows members to add friends to a private group and post to a shared Campus Story. That feature has debuted in over 1,400 colleges in the US and will roll out to more communities in the future. The company also noted the success of its $3.99/month subscription, Snapchat+, which has reached 2.5 million subscribers.
Snap also shared that its TikTok competitor, Spotlight, attracts less than half of its monthly active users, with 300 million users engaging with the feature each month. That said, the company pointed out that engagement for the platform was still growing, with 20% growth in Spotlight submissions and total time spent watching more than doubling from the year prior.
The company said its primary advertising focus is direct response (DR) advertising, which represents about two-thirds of its business and is growing more rapidly than its brand-oriented business. Snap’s DR platform was the primary force behind its ad revenue growth rate of over 50% in the five years ending in 2021.
Other metrics of note that the company shared include that Snap’s community outside North America and Europe grew more than 80% since Q4 2020. Snapchatters subscribing to new creators through Spotlight increased by 225%, while the number of total daily subscriptions increased by 240%. Time spent on Spotlight in India more than tripled, while time spent watching Shows increased by over 55% last year.
Meanwhile, TikTok announced its 1 billion monthly active user milestone in 2021, with a forecast to reach 1.8 billion users by the end of 2022. Facebook reported roughly 2.96 billion monthly active users earlier this month, while Pinterest recently acquired 450 million monthly users.
It’s yet to be determined where Twitter currently stands, as the company is no longer publicly traded following Elon Musk’s acquisition. The company reported 237.8 million users as of July 2022, but Twitter reported these numbers using its own unique metric, mDAUs, or “monetizable monthly active users.” Twitter has said this number indicates the active users on the platform who see its ads.