Social Rocket
Snap published its third-quarter figures on 4 November 2026: 1,72 billion US dollars in revenue, 14 percent more than a year earlier, and for the first time in a while a quarterly profit of 56 million dollars. For advertisers, however, the real news lies elsewhere: the advertising business grew by only 4 percent, while the number of daily active users in North America and Europe declined year over year. From 2027 the company wants to report its reach primarily in monthly active users (MAU).
Subscriptions are growing much faster than Snapchat advertising
In the quarter, Snap reported 495 million daily active users (DAU) and 977 million monthly active users. The DAU figure rose by just two million compared with the second quarter. Recent company growth has come mainly from paid offerings: "Other Revenue" rose by 84 percent, driven by Snapchat+, Memories Storage and Lens+. Together these products passed the mark of 30 million paying subscribers.
The advertising picture is more mixed. Chief Commercial Officer Ronan Harris reported growth in performance-oriented campaigns, while brand advertising declined compared with the previous year. Snap wants to win more ad budgets by improving measurement, targeting and AI optimisation – a direction already visible in the global rollout of Unified Attribution and the new Dynamic Product Ads in Sponsored Snaps.
Europe: fewer daily users, more revenue per user
The distribution of growth is especially interesting for media planning:
North America: 92 million daily active (−6 percent year over year), 11,07 dollars quarterly revenue per DAU.
Europe: 98 million daily active (−1 percent), 3,69 dollars quarterly revenue per DAU.
Rest of the world: 305 million daily active (+9 percent), 1,13 dollars quarterly revenue per DAU.
The North American and European DAU figures were unchanged from the previous quarter. Even so, revenue in Europe grew by 22 percent to 363 million dollars. An existing audience can therefore become more valuable economically, even if the number of daily users stagnates. For German brands, regional reach and campaign data matter more than an isolated global user count.
Spotlight gains creators and viewers
Two engagement figures stand out from Snap's management commentary: the number of people publishing content in Spotlight rose by 130 percent year over year, and the number of daily active Spotlight viewers rose by 40 percent. At the same time, an average of eight percent more messages were sent per day.
That explains why Snapchat, alongside private communication, increasingly relies on publicly discoverable videos. Advertisers thereby gain more options to combine creator content with performance campaigns. Snap had already promoted this strategy with its own B2B creator campaign under the motto "Spend Smarter".
From Q1 2027, Snap counts monthly active users as its main metric
With its earnings report for the first quarter 2027, Snap plans to change its reporting: the global MAU figure becomes the primary audience metric. The key revenue-per-user figure will also be based on monthly rather than daily users in future. The regional DAU and ARPU figures published so far are to be dropped.
For market observers, part of the regional time series will therefore disappear. Marketing teams should continue to analyse performance by country, age group, ad inventory and conversion goal in their own Ads Managers, rather than deriving reach planning from global company metrics.
What advertisers need to know now: Snap is earning more money from a largely stable core audience, its short-video usage is growing, and performance-oriented campaigns are performing better than classic brand advertising. Whether the new products can speed up ad growth again is the central question for the coming quarters. For comparison, back in September Snap had already named ad growth, creators and AI as its priorities.
Sources: Snap Inc., Q3 report dated 4 November · management commentary on the quarter · Social Media Today, 4 November