Snapchat Catching On With Older Demos

Since its founding five years ago, Snapchat has become a digital mecca for high school and college-age students, allowing them to send photos and videos that disappear in a matter of seconds. It has amassed 150 million daily active users, said a person familiar with the matter.

The Wall Street Journal reports Snapchat also has been a refuge from parents. Until lately, that is.

Now, the “olds” are arriving in force, whether they are parents spying on their kids, or professionals trying out another social-media platform.

An aging demographic is inevitable for many apps that first catch fire with teens. Whether Snapchat can maintain its fanatical teen base, which is popular with advertisers, while at the same time broadening its appeal beyond youth, will have major ramifications for the app, which investors value at $16 billion.

It can mean the difference between achieving massive scale like Facebook Inc., the social-network juggernaut that has 1.6 billion users and is valued at $330 billion, or remaining a large niche service like Twitter Inc., a once-formidable rival that has lost three-fourths of its market value as its growth has stagnated.

A recent comScore report declared that Snapchat is “breaking into the mainstream,” estimating that 38% of U.S. smartphone users ages 25 to 34 are on Snapchat, and 14% of those 35 or older. Three years ago, those numbers were 5% and 2%, respectively.