Snap Completely Redesigning App After Anemic User Growth

Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, said Tuesday that it is planning to redesign the messaging application to make it easier to use after facing several consecutive quarters of anemic user growth.

According to a report from The Verge, Snap’s parent company announced in an earnings report today that it’s “currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use,” because “one thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use”.

“There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don’t yet know how the behavior of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application,” said Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. “We’re willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial longterm benefits to our business.”

Details on the redesigned app were scant. Spiegel told analysts the goal is to make it easier to use, particularly for people using Android phones, those older than 34, and people outside the US and Western Europe.

The company reported 178 million people use its service daily, falling short of an expected 180.5 million. Snap also confirmed reports that its major foray into hardware, Snapchat Spectacles, had been a failure and cost the firm nearly $40 million.

That’s another blow to Snap, which labeled itself as a “camera company” in its filing to go public. Spectacles may not have been expected to generate much revenue, but it was a core branding product for the company.

Snap’s shares sank 17% in after-hours trading Tuesday after the Los Angeles-based company reported sales of $207.9 million USD, up 62% from a year ago, but short of the $236 million in sales forecast by analysts.