Snapchat surpasses 900 million monthly active users

Platform is popular around the world and has particularly loyal users in the Middle East

Snap says it is continuing to invest in new content experiences for users. AFP

While competitors like Meta are fighting lengthy battles in court, Snapchat is taking a victory lap after surpassing 900 million monthly active users.

“As Snapchat has grown over the years, we've seen this idea continue to resonate with our community – and we love seeing all the silly, fun and imperfect moments Snapchatters share with each other,” read a news release from the company on Tuesday celebrating the milestone.

“Thank you to the global Snapchat community for being part of this journey with us. Happy Snapping!”

Snapchat has slowly grown in popularity since it was launched in 2011. AFP

The company also announced that its first quarter revenue increased 14 per cent year-over-year to $1,363 million, with daily active users increasing 9 percent to approximately 460 million.

Chief executive Evan Spiegel said that momentum was driven in part by progress made with direct-response advertising solutions as well as growth of the company's Snapchat+ subscription business.

The company warned, however, that "macroeconomic uncertainty" and "geopolitical events" could impact progress in the quarters ahead.

California-based Snapchat, which now simply goes by Snap, was founded in 2011 by three Stanford University students. Originally called Picaboo, the idea behind the platform was the antithesis of everything social media seemed to stand for at the time: content produced by those who used the app would disappear rather than being permanent.

That difference, the emphasis on social media content with an expiration date, proved appealing. It grew by leaps and bounds, and in 2013, Facebook, the entrenched social media leader at that point, took notice. Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg attempted to purchase Snapchat, but the platform opted against being acquired.

Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat in 2013. Bloomberg

Several years later, however, Meta’s Instagram platform rolled out a feature called Stories, which showed temporary content from users for 24 hours. The similarities between the two caused bad blood between Snap and Meta. Meta’s attempted purchase of Snap has come full circle as the company is currently fighting an antitrust suit.

“I think if we would have bought them, we would have accelerated their growth, but that’s just speculation,” Mr Zuckerberg said on the witness stand in Washington when asked about Snapchat as Federal Trade Commission lawyers tried to show a pattern of Meta trying to buy competitors, rather than innovate.

Although Snap’s 900 million monthly active users is nothing to scoff at, it pales in comparison to Facebook’s estimated three billion active users, as well as TikTok’s more than one billion users. Yet analysts point out that Snap’s user base has limited churn and has proved incredibly loyal over the years.

In a 2024 interview with The National, Hussein Freijeh, vice president and general manager for Snap’s Middle East and North Africa office, said that active users in the region check the platform about 45 times per day. Mr Freijeh also said that Snap is particularly popular throughout the Middle East as the region goes “through a massive social and economic transformation”.

“Within that transformation, we're seeing the GCC community is really protective of the sense of community, and their relationships with their friends and family,” he said during an interview with The National's Business Extra podcast at Snap's Dubai office.

A 2022 social media report from by University of Oregon professors Damian Radcliffe and Hadil Abuhmaid also highlighted Snap’s appeal in the region. “Snapchat’s community in the Mena region continues to grow and the Middle East remains a major market for the app,” read part of the report.

Snap was also an early adopter of augmented reality (AR) to enhance the platform, offering filters to enhance user creativity. Those successful implementations of AR have also proven to be appealing to brands seeking to advertise to younger audiences on the platform. Both TikTok and Instagram have followed in Snap’s path in adopting AR features.