Snap has finally reaped the benefits of building a fully functional Android app. The company announced in its earnings report today that its user base mostly uses Android instead of iOS. That overall user base continues to grow, too. During the first quarter of 2021, Snapchat reached 280 million daily active users, an increase of 22 percent year over year.
CEO Evan Spiegel called the moment Android users overtook iOS users a “critical milestone that reflects the long-term value of the investment we made to rebuild our Android application,” in his prepared remarks today. As a reminder, Snapchat originally launched only on iOS and released its first Android app in 2012. The team later spent over a year rebuilding the app to bring it up to par with its iOS counterpart. As the Android app languished, Snapchat bled Android users. It finally released the final version of that app in 2019, making the app more functional and accessible to global users.
The company says its growth has also fueled it to invest in content abroad. Spiegel highlighted a Snap Original show the company launched in India in March, as well as its efforts to improve language support and feature localization.
Interestingly, new social apps, like Clubhouse in particular, continue to launch on iOS at first, sacrificing the potential Android market locally and abroad. If there’s anything to take away from Snap’s earnings this quarter, it’s not to sleep on Android users.
