2. A refreshed Android app could help reverse the flattening trend.
For months now, Snap has been working on a version of its app that will be easier to use and faster on devices that use the Android operating system. The company said it’s hopeful the new app will bring in new users, particularly in international markets, but it remains to be seen how quickly it will roll out. Snap said in prepared remarks that it’s testing the rebuilt Android app with a small group of users but didn’t give a timetable for the rollout.
The Android opportunity is large relative to iOS; Android phones accounted for 85.1% of smartphone shipments worldwide last year, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).
3. Snap is now a billion-dollar company.
Total revenue in 2018 reached $1.18 billion, a 43% increase over 2017. Essentially all revenue now comes from advertising; Spectacles are no longer a material contributor. In Q4, ad growth was strong from performance advertisers, including those in the app install, gaming and direct-to-consumer verticals, executives said during the earnings conference call.
Snap has doubled down on ad products aimed at performance advertisers, including adding a range of performance-based bidding options and efficiency improvements.
North America–Snap’s core market–is making up an increasingly smaller share of its worldwide revenues. The region accounted for 69.8% of total revenues last year, down from 80.4% in 2017.
In our most recent forecast published in September, we estimated that Snapchat would close the year with $1.06 billion in worldwide ad revenues, 62.6% of which would come from the US. (We’ll publish an updated Snapchat revenue forecast in the coming weeks.)