NEWS2 March 2017

Snapchat growth driven by 45-54 year-olds

Financials News North America Social media Trends UK

US – The growth of messaging app Snapchat, which was valued at $24bn ahead of its listing on the US stock market, has largely been driven by older Americans, according to figures from eMarketer.

Snap, the owner of Snapchat, priced its shares at $17 ahead of its initial public offering (IPO), despite losses and intense competition from rivals such as Facebook.

The company recently increased its US usage projections for 2017 by more than 5%, expecting 70.4 million Americans to use the platform. According to eMarketer, much of this growth is driven by older Americans and in 2017, 6.4% of Snapchat’s users will be between 45 and 54, up from the 4.2% previously projected.

In fact, while projections for all users aged 45 and over have been revised upwards, those for users aged under 24 have decreased slightly as a result of competition from rival Instagram.

“The usage trends are largely the result of a shift in the primary use case of Snapchat,” said forecasting analyst Jaimie Chung. “Older groups are now more likely to tune in for content. The platform has multiple partnerships with television networks for mini-episodes. Meanwhile, the younger groups are less likely to add Snapchat when Instagram Stories can fulfil their broadcasting needs.”

According to separate figures from Verto Analytics, the story in the UK is slightly different: time spent on Snapchat in the UK is more dominated by 18-24 year-olds: 70% of UK Snapchat usage is accounted for by this age group, compared with 57% of US Snapchat usage.