It’s well established that Snapchat is more popular with youth, but new data from comScore and CivicScience [pdf] offer some updated figures relating to Snapchat’s popularity. According to comScore’s numbers, Snapchat penetration is now at about half of 18-24-year-old smartphone users, up from less than one-third a year earlier and closing in on Instagram (54.6%). And while Snapchat’s popularity does tail off among older smartphone users, it has still been growing quickly.
For example, 1 in 5 smartphone users aged 25-34 used Snapchat in June, per comScore, with that being more than triple the percentage (6.3%) from a year earlier. Among smartphone owners aged 35 and older, Snapchat’s penetration stood at 7.6% in June, more than double the year-earlier penetration rate of 3%.
Not surprisingly, CivicScience’s poll shows a similarly young skew. Among the 14% of survey respondents who claimed to use Snapchat, 71% were aged under 25, with a plurality 43% between the ages of 18 and 24. Interestingly, the results of the survey indicate that Snapchat fans lean heavily female, as just 31% are men.
The CivicScience study also looked at behavioral traits of Snapchat users, many of which are consistent with traits commonly ascribed to youth:
- Compared to the general population, Snapchat fans are 86% more likely to say their friends and other contacts on social media influence the products they buy;
- Fans are 89% more likely to often post comments on Facebook or Twitter while watching a TV show or movie; and
- Fans are 43% more likely to say they are “addicted” to their digital devices.
