Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. Learn more.
Leaked metrics show why Snapchat had to be redesigned
- Leaked internal data suggests that Snapchat features like Snap Map and Discover are not used by the majority of users
- The data also showed that Snapchat is very successful as a messaging platform
- The leaked metrics give insight into the reasoning behind the Snapchat app redesign
Snapchat might be one of the most popular apps out there, but Snap is known for its secretive internal operations. Even so, The Daily Beast obtained internal metrics that give us insight into some of the company’s decision-making regarding Snapchat.
As you can imagine, some of these metrics are not rosy. For example, Snap Map is a relatively new feature that lets you share your location with others and see Bitmoji on a map. When it launched last June, Snap Maps had over 30 million daily users.
According to the leaked metrics, that number sharply dropped to 19 million in September, which could be the reason why the redesigned Snapchat app puts Snap Maps more front and center.
This could also be the reason why Snap recently hired former News Corp senior vice president and global head of video Rahul Chopra. The new hire was reportedly brought in to work on ‘Stories Everywhere,’ which makes Snapchat Stories available across the internet.
The idea is for Stories Everywhere to boost the presence of Stories content, which would then boost Snap Map usage, since much of the Stories content is buried in the feature.
Also not rosy: Snapchat’s Discover feature, which allows publishers like The New York Times and The Washington Post to pump out daily ‘Editions’ of their content.
According to the data, Discover Edition consumption peaked in July, when the feature saw around 38 million daily unique users. That is not a terrible figure, but keep in mind that Snap does not give out any daily active user figures for its Discover platform.
Once the Discover part of the app is separated from users’ content, it is doubtful the feature will see those peak figures. That will make it troublesome for Snap, since the fear is that folks will stop using Discover and, as a result, will cause Snap’s ad revenue to sharply drop.
Not all was bad for Snapchat, as the app saw a steady, if minuscule, number of daily sent snaps. According to the leaked metrics, folks sent personal snaps to their friends more often than they posted to Stories, with an average of 34 chat messages sent each day.
It is this high volume of photo and video messages that investors believe give Snapchat a leg up over competitors like iMessage and Facebook Messenger.
The Daily Beast collected many more metrics, but the bottom line is that the Snapchat redesign might help spur user growth for Stories while possibly nixing user growth for Discover. That might be necessary for Snap’s long-term viability, however.
With the company having lost $443 million during the third quarter of 2017, it needs to prove that it can effectively monetize its wares. An increase in Stories usage would definitely help, and Snap could mitigate a possible ad revenue decline by forcing users to watch an ad for at least three seconds before skipping.