Taking advantage of the benefits of building a full-fledged Snapchat app for Android, the company announced in its earnings report that its user base primarily uses Android rather than iOS.
The report shows how popular the app is with Android users as the overall Android user base continues to grow.
In the first quarter of 2021, the number of daily active Snapchatters reached 280 million, up 22% year-over-year.
CEO Evan Spiegel described the moment when Android users overtook iOS users as a milestone and reflected the long-term value of the company's investment in rebuilding Android apps.
Spiegel said: "The vast majority of smartphones in the world run Android, and the Android user base has now exceeded the iOS user base."
The company initially launched Snapchat for iOS only and launched its Android app for the first time in 2012.
Due to the poor functionality of the Android app, Snapchat lost Android users and Android users strongly criticized the poor performance of the company's app.
The quality of the experience differs from that of the iOS apps, which has prompted Android phone owners to leave the platform.
Then the team spent more than a year converting the app to iOS.
When the company released a revised version of the app in 2019, the situation changed, making it more functional and available to users around the world.
The company said its growth also boosted its overseas investment in content. Spiegel highlighted the company's original Snap plan in India in March and is also working to improve language support and feature localization.
Interestingly, new social apps (Clubhouse in particular) continue to run on iOS first, effectively undermining the potential of the Android market at home and abroad.
Companies like Samsung and Qualcomm have invested heavily to offer affordable 5G phones and launched cheaper Android phones over 5G connections to make it easier to use social media apps like Snapchat.
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| Snapchat is growing in popularity on Android |