This chart of Snapchat's download ranking over time (below) gives you an indicator of just how massive the user base is becoming inside the disappearing photo messages app.
Snapchat may have seen its share of troubles recently — it settled charges with the FTC over its misleading marketing and a straw poll of teenagers on Twitter shows that most people hate the new video and chat updates — but Snapchat's historic ranking in terms of U.S. downloads in Apple's App Store shows it has consistently been the most popular app of its kind all year.
The chart shows that it's basically the permanent No. 1 photo app downloaded in the U.S. by iPhone users. iPhone users are a good proxy for both iOS and Android device users. Among all apps of any kind, Snapchat always hovers around the top 10. That's a considerable achievement. We pulled this data from App Annie, the app analytics company:
The chart doesn't tell us how many people are downloading the app, or how many are monthly active users. But we can make some estimates based on historic reports. Snapchat reportedly had 30 million users in December, and by April of this year had an estimated 70 million MAUs. That suggests the app is gathering monthly active users at a rate of about 10 million per month.
As the App Annie ranking shows no sign of a decline in Snapchat's popularity, we can assume the app is still growing robustly. It's growing far faster than Twitter, for instance. It might eventually catch Instagram, too.
The data makes its $2 billion valuation seem to be cheap at the price, considering.
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