A new report from market research firm eMarketer has some good news for Snap investors: The company’s Snapchat app is finally seeing growth again following its disastrous redesign in 2018. That redesign saw Snapchat’s user base decline 1.4% in 2018, according to eMarketer. However, through the course of 2019, Snapchat has seen a turnaround, growing its global user base 14.2%.
Snapchat will have 293.01 million users worldwide by the end of this year, according to the firm. That growth sees an increase in users in all age ranges except for the 18- to 24-year-old demographic, which will see a 0.2% decline. However, the all-important 11- to 17-year-old demographic will see 11.5% growth. What’s perhaps most interesting, though, is that the age demographic that will grow the most in 2019 is the above-35 crowd.
As for why Snapchat made such a turnaround in 2019, eMarketer’s principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson said, “Snapchat has reported gains in users every quarter so far in 2019, and we believe that the relaunched Android app has reinvigorated growth. In addition, features such as the successful baby face and gender swap filters earlier this year have driven increases in user engagement with the app.”