Snapchat scraps ‘simple’ redesign as it loses users in North America

Snap is backing away from plans to simplify the design of Snapchat as it reports losing 1 million users in North America. As part of its Q1 2025 earnings report on Tuesday, Snap revealed that it’s instead going to start testing a “refined” layout that keeps the app’s five existing tabs.

The company first started testing the “Simple Snapchat” redesign last year, which would’ve removed the Snap Map and private chats tabs from the main navigation bar, leaving users with tabs for Stories, the camera, and its TikTok-like video feed, Spotlight.

Snap is now reversing these plans after months of testing, seemingly after seeing reduced usage or user frustration. “Our‬‭ most‬‭ engaged‬‭ Snapchatters‬‭ consistently‬‭ demonstrated‬‭ a‬‭ preference‬‭ for‬‭ a‬‭ five-tab‬‭ layout, favoring‬ the‬‭ familiarity‬‭ of‬‭ tile-based‬‭ content‬‭ discovery‬‭ and‬‭ a‬‭ dedicated‬‭ Map‬‭ tab,” Snap writes in a letter to investors. In 2018, Snap’s stock sunk and users fled following a redesign aimed at keeping content from friends and brands separated.

The newly revamped five-tab layout “combines the best of both approaches,” the company says, as it will bring more Stories to the messaging experience and make it easier to find Spotlight, which will appear directly to the right of the camera button.

Snap doesn’t say how widely the redesign was rolled out or where it was tested. But the company reported losing users in North America in the most recent quarter, falling to 99 million daily active users, down from 100 million users in Q4 2024. Snapchat’s usage in North America has been essentially flat for close to three years.

Despite a decrease in North American users, Snap reported a 14 percent year-over-year increase in revenue to $1.36 billion, which it attributes to growth in advertising and its Snapchat Plus subscription. Its global daily active users continue to grow, increasing to 460 million from 453 million last quarter.