For the past couple of years, many wrote Snapchat off. It struggled to make notable growth and the future didn’t look promising for the photo/video sharing platform. Recently, though, Snapchat has managed to massively grow its user base to become one of today’s fastest-growing platforms.

After releasing its quarterly earnings report, Snapchat showed just how successful the platform has been over the last few months. It posted an impressive number of daily users, earning 293 million on average. That’s more than double since 2017 (which was 173 million daily users at the time) and up 55 million users since last year’s Q2. To put Snapchat’s massive growth into perspective, in the same quarter, Twitter saw 206 million users daily. Snapchat’s increase in users has also turned the company into one of the fastest-growing platforms with a 116 percent revenue growth (reaching $982 million).

What has caused the growth?

Most platforms experienced growth during the last year’s lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Snapchat was no exception to this. The surge makes sense, since more people were online and communicating through social media. However, the company believes it will grow faster after the pandemic. The reason for this is because Snapchat believes the app is great for people to use as they’re out with others in a social setting.

While some growth came from more people being online during 2020, Snapchat has also added many features that have captured more users. For instance, Spotlight, Snapchat’s answer to TikTok, has grown its user base by 49 percent this quarter and has tripled the number of content it houses. It’s undeniable that Spotlight has helped the platform grow its user base by providing more content for users to watch.

The future looks good for Snapchat

Looking forward, Snapchat is confident that it will continue to grow. So far, its trajectory looks extremely good, both for Snapchat and its creators. While the platform is currently paying its creators to make good content on its platform, it needs to continue to offer more avenues for monetization. While Snapchat does presently offer Snap Tokens (virtual gifts), it will grab more creators’ attention if it opens up more ways to make money with their content.