Explode Wants to Dethrone Snapchat But...

Notorious social growth hacker Nikita Bier released an app that mimics the original Snapchat to "spite Snap" a couple of weeks ago.

The app is called Explode and it lets iPhone users send messages that disappear and cleverly uses App Clips to grow. But its launch numbers surprised me - Explode got around 20K downloads. A one-day spike and an immediate dip.

That led me to ask a very important question - is anyone really looking for a Snapchat replacement in 2025?

I'm using Snapchat's app revenue over the years to answer this question because while downloads are nice, money talks.

And looking at the rate of growth the answer is an overwhelming no. No no no.

According to Appfigures Intelligence, Snapchat's app net revenue reached $103M in Q4 - and that's net, so it's what Snap gets to keep after store fees. The App Store was responsible for the majority of the revenue. It's also where revenue has been growing the most.

But a lot of money doesn't really answer the question. After all, TikTok was bringing in more in one month before it was banned.

This stat will help - between Q1 and Q4, Snapchat's app revenue rose 53%! It started out in the mid-two-digits and ended with three.

Almost every month was higher than its predecessor in 2024, indicating no one's really looking for a Snapchat replacement. Well, maybe one, but that's a really small market for a new app.

Nikita may have built Explode to "spite" Snap. Maybe he built it to get bought. Maybe he built it just for fun. Whatever it is, as long as its selling proposition is to replace Snapchat it'll have a really hard time getting anywhere.

After I finished writing this article, I came across this post from Nikita explaining why the launch failed. He agrees with my conclusion.