Snapchat Has Made This App Explode

Bitmoji has experienced explosive success this year thanks to Snapchat. The app allows users to create their own personal emoji and send responses to other friends, and even though it's only two and a half years old, this customizable emoji app is growing at an impressive pace.

Snapchat purchased Bitmoji for more than $100 million in 2016, so the two apps are more than just intrinsically linked. ComScore, which reports on the state of the US mobile market, revealed that this deal has helped to make Bitmoji one of the fastest growing applications stateside.

Snapchat Has Made This App Explode — Bitmoji has come along way since 2007. *Image by Zaneology/Flickr*

The report demonstrates that the app's growth has skyrocketed by 5,210% since 2015, beating the likes of Tinder, Uber, and Lyft. Judging by this success, it certainly seems that Snapchat got its money worth when purchasing Bitmoji. In February 2016, Bitimoji received 1.2 million downloads around the world, according to Sensor Tower's analytics.

However, it's no surprise that an app which can leverage Snapchat's user base would see such growth. Engagement with the snap-happy app comes in at number two after Facebook. Sensor Tower cofounder Oliver Yeh explained:

The growth we're seeing for Bitmoji under Snap is partly uptake by Snapchat's millions of existing pre-acquisition users, combined with some really compelling prompts within Snapchat that encourage new users to download and start using Bitmoji to enhance their snaps and text chats,

— Oliver Yeh

Bitmoji has come along way from its early days of making personalized comics, when it was known as Bitstrips in 2007. This soon progressed to creating avatars in addition to the comics, and these days, the app is still extending its reach.

Earlier this month, the app incorporated a feature that allows users to place friends on their home screen using widgets, which they can then tap to chat. Bitmoji also launched a Chrome extension recently that shares Bimojis via emails, Google Docs, and a multitude of places online.

We're willing to bet Bitmoji still has a few more tricks up its cartoon sleeve, as this innovative little app doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon. If you still haven't tried it, you can grab Bitmoji for iOS or Android to join the fun!