Editor’s Note: We’re updating our Live Marketing & Advertising Earnings Tracker in real time. Check out how Snap fits into the advertising landscape—and what each company’s earnings say about the state of advertising.

The news: Snap is shifting its main audience metric from daily active users (DAUs) to monthly active users (MAUs) in Q1 2027, the company announced in its latest earnings report. Q3 DAU growth was minimal overall and negative in key markets like North America.

Snap will also stop reporting regional DAUs and regional average revenues per user (ARPU), and will replace these metrics with global MAU-based ARPU.

The company argued that DAUs are not “the best primary measure of long-term value” and that MAUs more accurately represent “the scale of [Snap’s] community.”

Why it matters: The change puts greater emphasis on sustained use and overall reach on Snapchat. But while MAUs can demonstrate audience scale, they don’t reveal how frequently users actually return to Snapchat or how many advertising opportunities they generate. The disappearance of regional figures, meanwhile, could make it harder to assess engagement and monetization in important advertising markets.

The change suggests that Snap may be trying to paint a rosier picture of Snapchat’s scale and influence than its engagement trends warrant. Our estimates reinforce concerns about the platform’s ability to maintain its audience and advertising relevance: