For the first time, Snap has reported more Snapchat daily active users on Android than on iOS. Although the app has always been a popular option, the user base had skewed towards the iPhone. Not only does that now appear to be changing, but at a time when many services, including Clubhouse, continue to prioritize releasing their apps as iPhone exclusives.
Snapchat first launched in 2011 and was only available on iOS devices at the time. It wasn’t until the following year when the Android app also became available. Over the years since, Snap has continued to roll out new features, with its Lenses, effects and filters proving to be an extremely popular way to interact with the app. Snap has been further building on its AR effects, with recent suggestions the next version of Spectacles might be able to use AR filters without the help of a connected smartphone.
Snap has released its 2021 first quarter results, confirming Snapchat saw daily active users increase to 280 million during the quarter. This represents an increase of 51 million compared to the same quarter in the year before. However, the release also confirmed that, for the first time, the majority of daily active users were on Android and not iOS. Snap did not provide exact numbers for each operating system, but the suggestion was that the start of 2021 resulted in a shift in the OS primarily used to access Snapchat on a daily basis.
Snapchat Now More Of An Android Thing?
To be clear, Snapchat announced daily active users were up in general. Therefore, there’s no suggestion that iOS usage is down. In fact, Snap confirmed that daily users were up on both platforms. In addition, daily active users were also up year-over-year in pretty much every part of the world the app is available in. Essentially, Snapchat usage was up, and by a lot. It just happens to be that it was even more up on Android than on iOS, compared to previous quarters. In comments provided after the quarterly release, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel suggested one of the reasons for the sudden uptick in Android users is likely the app experience in general. Spiegel explained that the “critical milestone” is a direct result of the rebuilding of the Android app, suggesting that as the Android experience improved, the number of users have naturally increased.
Of course, the fact that Snapchat now appears to be more popular on Android than iOS shouldn’t be too surprising, considering the number of Android users there are globally compared to iOS users. This is especially true outside of the United States, where Snapchat also happens to be seeing significant levels of user growth. For example, Snap CFO Derek Andersen explained how the first quarter of 2021 saw a 5-percent year-over-year growth in the United States, while Snapchat's "Rest of World" daily active users grew 57-percent during the same time.