The parent company of Snapchat has reported a significant 21% growth in daily active users in the ‘Rest of World’ region—which includes Asia-Pacific—for the second quarter.
The region, which now counts 56 million daily active users (DAUs), was the highest growth region for users in the quarter, compared to a 5% uplift in DAUs in Europe (which includes Russia and Turkey), and a 3% increase in North America (which includes Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America).
Overall the app added 13 million DAUs in Q2, bringing its total global number to 203 million.
This was the second quarter in a row of growth for the company, which saw its user base fall from 191 million daily users in the first quarter of 2018 to 188 million the following quarter.
However, this is still less than half Instagram Stories’ 500 million DAUs as of January. Snapchat is also facing stiff competition from 15-second video app TikTok, which reportedly has more than 200 million DAUs in China alone (although this is not an official figure).
From a revenue perspective, Europe recorded the highest growth in the quarter, up 53% to $61 million versus the same quarter last year. This was followed by ‘Rest of World’, up 49% to $67 million, and North America, up 47% to $260 million.
The business recorded US$388 million of global revenue for the second quarter overall, up 48% compared to a year prior.
While North America still accounts for the lion’s share of overall revenue (67%), this is marginally down from 68% in the same quarter last year, as Europe’s share increased to 16%. ‘Rest of World’ was flat, accounting for 17% of revenue.
Snap has invested in various product features this year to try to capture more growth outside the US.
In April it released an updated version of its Android app to address complaints of a poor user experience. Snap chief executive Evan Spiegel said that the change encouraged Snapchatters using the Android app to send 7% more snaps compared to the old version.
In 2019, the company also launched in eight new languages that are spoken by more than 750 million people globally, including Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Vietnamese, and Urdu. The majority of the new languages are spoken in India, which is the app's sixth biggest market for users, according to Statista data.