Update: An earlier version of this story stated that the redesigned version of Snapchat will be coming out later this year. It’s actually a rebuilt version.
Snap’s CEO, Evan Spiegel is speaking this week at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2019 in San Francisco, and stated that the rebuilt Android App that it believes will help grow its user-base, will be rolled out by the end of the year.
Spiegel stated that the rollout of this rebuild “will be rolled out by the end of the year”.
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat has been saying since it went public nearly two years ago, that it needs to improve its Android version of the app. The company believes that the new app will be important to its international growth. Particularly in markets like India, Indonesia and the Philippines. The reason why it’s a big deal in those markets is due to the fact that the new app is going to be a much more lightweight version, and use less data. That’s an important metric in an emerging market like India and Indonesia.
The Android app has gotten a lot of flack over the last few years, since it is not as good as the iOS app. One main reason for this is the fact that the Snapchat app on Android takes a screenshot from your camera. Instead of using the camera itself. Making the photos look pretty terrible, especially on high-resolution smartphones. That is of course, just one of the issues that the Android app has. It is also fairly slow, and that turns off a lot of people from using it.
Snapchat needs to hurry up and get this updated Android app out the door though, seeing as it is losing users left and right. This is because of Facebook and other social media networks stealing Snapchat’s entire idea of stories. After Spiegel refused to sell Snapchat to Facebook, Zuckerberg decided to copy the feature and put it in all of Facebook’s apps, including Instagram where it is performing very well for Facebook.
Snap’s stock has had a pretty rocky road, especially in the past year as Facebook, YouTube and others have ripped off its story features. It started this year as a “penny stock” which is a stock that is under $5 per share. It has grown a fair bit since then, with a current price of around $10.04 per share. But that doesn’t mean that Snap’s troubles are behind it. It is still far below the price it started at when it debuted on the stock market in 2017, of $27.09 and it’s been a tough road to get back there.
On top of losing users, Snap has also been struggling to turn a profit. Losing users is a big reason why the company hasn’t been able to turn a profit anyways. With less people seeing ads, it means that there’s less revenue coming in. That is also forcing many advertisers to pull some funds away from Snap and put it elsewhere, like Facebook and Twitter. The Android app is a small part of Snap’s issues right now, but it can help turn the company around a bit.