Here's yet another sign of Snapchat's meteoric success.
In the UK, Snapchat accounts for 75% of all instant-messaging data, according to the CEO of the mobile carrier Vodafone. We first spotted the stat on Digital Trends.
Here's what Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said last week on the company's latest earnings call:
I couldn't believe my eyes when I heard the statistics from the UK. In the UK, if you take all the messaging apps, so Facebook, WhatsApp, whatever, Google, whatever, 75% of the traffic today is Snapchat which means that the upload and the different way of communicating is actually stimulating a lot of usage. Which is why we're convinced that this — our strategy was right in going into bundling mobile and video.
It could be that Snapchat users are using so much data compared with the app's competitors because Snapchat is designed to send data-heavy videos and photos. While you can send and view videos and photos on other messaging apps, it's not a prerequisite of their services. Nevertheless, it is another way to measure Snapchat's success versus that of messaging rivals. Snapchat may have only about 200 million users to Facebook Messenger's 600 million and WhatsApp's 800 million (also owned by Facebook,) but it seems Snapchat users might be a lot more active on the app.
In January, Snapchat launched its Discover section, in which media partners such as Vice and Comedy Central share videos and photos designed to be on the app for 24 hours before disappearing. TechCrunch reported in March that Snapchat users' average smartphone data use skyrocketed from about 100 to 150 megabytes per week pre-Discover launch to nearly 400 megabytes per week afterward.
Vodafone's CEO says Snapchat data consumption has grown 260% in the past six months. While heavy data use from customers initially requires mobile carriers to invest in the infrastructure to support it, over the long-term it can drive up the average revenue carriers receive from each customer.
And with mobile video use continuing to grow, Vodafone hopes to upgrade more customers to faster, more expensive 4G data plans. A cohort analysis, which Vodafone used in its presentation to investors during its earnings call last week, shows the value of data to the company. 4G adds at least £1 ($1.54) in revenue per user.
Most Snapchat users are aged between 18 and 34 years old. If Vodafone's data is anything to go by, they are heavy users of the app — an ideal medium on which to sell advertising.
