
At least for the moment, Snapchat is still
cool.
That’s according to a new report from Piper Jaffray, which surveyed approximately 6,100 U.S. teens. Compared to Instagram and other social rivals, Snapchat’s popularity
among teens increased by 12% -- to 47% -- over the past year.
Put another way, Instagram’s popularity “doesn’t seem to be coming at the expense of Snapchat,”
said Samuel Kemp, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray.
Yet, Kemp points out Snapchat had a small bump in the survey, while Instagram is gaining steam. “Longer-term, our
core concern with Snapchat is that its relative uniqueness is declining. And since 92% of Snapchatters are on Instagram, there is a threat of engagement loss,” he added.
When it comes to
hardware, U.S. teens are still crazy about Apple. Indeed, 82% of teens expect their next phone to be an iPhone -- up from 81% in the spring of 2017 -- Piper Jaffray found.
As with other
demographics, teens continue to embrace streaming video services at the expense of linear TV, which declined 2% since last fall.
Another big loser this past year was Pandora, which saw teen
listening decline from 49% to 35%, while on-demand services like Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music continue to gain share.
Teens also appear to be spending less, year-over-year. According
to Piper Jaffray, teen spending declined 4.4%, while parent contribution to teen spending was 67% -- just below the long-term average of 68%.
Also of note, nearly half of
teens (49%) now say Amazon is their favorite website.
As of the second quarter of the year, Snapchat claimed 173 million daily users. Last month, Instagram boasted about 500
million daily users.