Posting its first quarterly earnings since going public, Snap Inc. reported that its daily active user base grew to 166 million in Q1. That’s an increase of 36% over year-ago levels but only a 5% gain from the previous quarter.
Snap defines a daily active user (DAU) as a registered Snapchat user who opens the app at least once during a defined 24-hour period.
In North America, Snap said it added 3 million daily users in Q1, reaching 71 million DAUs.
The slowing rate of growth is not surprising for the US market, given Snapchat’s huge popularity among its core group of young users. eMarketer estimates that 83.4% of 12- to 17-year-olds, and 78.6% of 18- to 24-year-olds, use the app at least once per month. There is not a lot of room for growth at those penetration levels. Indeed, eMarketer projects that most of Snapchat’s usage gains in the US going forward will come from older users. Read the rest at eMarketer.