Snapchat is becoming more and more popular across Android
Snap has reaped the benefits of creating a Snapchat app for Android with full potential, as the company announced in its earnings report that its user base mostly uses Android instead of iOS.
- The report showed how popular the app is for Android users, as the overall Android user base continues to grow.
- During the first quarter of 2021, Snapchat reached 280 million daily active users, an increase of 22 percent year-on-year.
- CEO Evan Spiegel described the moment when Android users overtook iOS users as a milestone that reflects the long-term value of the investment the company has made by rebuilding the Android app.
“The vast majority of smartphones in the world run Android, and our Android user base is now larger than our iOS user base,” Spiegel said.
- The company originally launched Snapchat for iOS only and released the Android app for the first time in 2012.
- With the weak Android app, Snapchat has lost Android users, and Android users have strongly criticized the company for its poor app performance.
- The experience did not have the same quality as the iOS app, which prompted Android phone owners to leave the platform.
- The team later spent more than a year rebuilding the app to make it on par with its iOS counterpart.
- Things changed when the company released a revamped version of the app in 2019, making it more functional and available to global users.
- The company says its growth has also driven it to invest in content abroad, and Spiegel highlighted the company's Snap Original program in India in March, in addition to its efforts to improve language support and localization of features.
- Interestingly, new social apps, like Clubhouse, in particular, continue to run across iOS at first, which makes them sacrifice the potential Android market both domestically and externally.
- Companies such as Samsung and Qualcomm have invested heavily in providing 5G phones at affordable prices, and more cheap Android phones are being launched with a 5G connection, making social media applications, such as Snapchat, more accessible.