Snapchat India

What is it ?

Snapchat is a camera company that doesn’t actually sell a camera (not as core offering). The equivalent would be Zoom saying “We are a webcam company.” It makes no sense! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills that no one else sees how bizarre this claim is. Snap is a company that utilizes other devices’ cameras to facilitate their messaging and entertainment app.

Focusing the mission of the company on being a “camera company” has led the organization in a totally fruitless exercise of hardware development. Their first effort, the Spectacles, had an incredible marketing campaign in 2017. Popup machines dispensing the glasses were everywhere and the media was abuzz with how cool the launch was.

Snapchat and it’s place in our world

📣 Tired of the fakeness, social pressures & signalling of traditional social media? 😥

Fundamentally, humans want to connect with each other better — they want to be themselves, express better & have a safe private space where they don’t feel like they are being judged.

Instagram, Facebook and other platforms, have morphed into these large platforms where users portray only the 1% of their life which looks good. These platforms have become a place for signalling and not a place to truly express, share & connect.

Enter our fun yellow friend- Snapchat & welcome to the exciting world of Augmented Reality & alternate take on social networks.

Snapchat is an app that empowers people to express themselves freely & help deepen connections

Snapchat empowers people to express themselves, stay connected and live in the moment through camera features & its augmented reality (AR) technology. It enables users to learn about the world through spotlight, discover and maps.

Why India is Important ?

Few things Snapchat is doing for User acquisition in India:-

Evan says that “Our desire to build a better way of communicating visually through our camera has evolved into a leading platform for augmented reality. Our AR products and services are driving major impact at scale today, as Snapchatters use our services to shop, play, learn, explore, and entertain themselves.”

Beginning in October last year, the company organized a ‘Snap In India’ event that brought together Snapchat’s community of creators, storytellers and “Snapchatters”.

According to Snap, AR sees a 94% higher conversion rate when consumers interact with products using the technology in India.

They have added culturally relevant content, developed highly active and creative local creator communities, and invested in local products, marketing initiatives, and language support.

Hyperlocal experiences:-

1. The app is available in-app is also available in nine Indian languages — Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
2. The company also has dedicated AR lenses for different religious and cultural festivals in India. There are three Snapchat landmark lenses including the newly launched one at India Gate, and Gateway of India in Mumbai and Taj Mahal in Agra.
3. It also launched the language learning lens that aims to make learning Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, and Telugu easier for users. Snapchat’s language learning lens uses AR and machine learning (ML) to translate objects in real-time in different languages.

Partnerships:-

1. Partnered with Sharechat to integrate Snap’s camera kit into the startup’s short video platform, Moj. There are 150 Snapchat lenses available on Moj so far.
2. Partnership with Google and Reliance Jio for JioPhone Next. It will come with Snapchat lenses integrated into its camera. The camera that will integrate Snapchat’s augmented reality lenses, which will be highly customized for local Indian users. So people can enjoy lenses that are at the core of Snapchat, in a very native way without having to do anything.
3. Samsung has added a new “Fun Mode” feature to bring some of Snap’s AR-powered Lenses to their native camera app and extended this partnership locally with their “Made in India” M Series smartphones.
4. Flipkart will be the India-first e-commerce partnership for Snap, and Snap’s camera kit will be a part of Flipkart’s “camera storefront. Through this partnership, shoppers will be able to begin their shopping and e-commerce engagement journey through Snapchat AR, making the process easy from the comfort of their homes,” the company said.
5. Snap is also enabling virtual try-ons for platforms like Sugar Cosmetics and MyGlamm.
6. Snap Map will be integrated with Zomato, which serves as a personal map to each Snapchatter’s surroundings, connecting people and places, will enable users to access restaurant information and be able to place food orders right from their personal map on Snapchat.
7. Entertainment channels partners like Sony and Zee TV to make further inroads in the country.

Alternate of Reels and Youtube Shorts, Spotlight:-

1. At Snap’s partner summit in May this year, the company said it paid creators over $130 million globally. It also made changes to the fund saying that creators will now be paid millions per month.

Content Partnership:-

1. It has so far partnered with 60 local channels from 32 different publishing partners. Content of different genres ranging from news to Bollywood, beauty, comedy, and art are displayed in the app’s Discover section.
2. Web series like Comedy: VirDas -The Most Epic Max Show’, Cooking: Anushka Sen — What’s On My Plate” and original shows like ‘Phone Swap India’’, a dating series for GenZ.
3. It partnered with MoonFrog Labs to launch a custom version of Ludo Club, and it also made a localized game concept called “Dosa Dash” that is based on one of its popular games, ‘Ready Chef Go’.

Talking about the market opportunity for Snapchat, Snap Inc Chief Business Officer Jeremi Gorman said Snap comprises less than 2% of the $210 billion digital ad market and less than 1% of the $520 billion global digital ad market. Further, the platform reaches nearly half of US smartphone users and more than 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds in over 20 countries.

A lot of young audience loves snapchat but is that enough for a sustainable public business or make it profitable for shareholders ?

Snapchat is dying ?

Let’s look at some bullet points:

• Over the last 12 months, Snap stock is down ~87%.
• All headcount growth has been frozen
• The company refuses to give guidance for Q3
• It is currently trading for less than the price it IPO’d at five years ago (2017)
• It had a negative cash flow of $147M in Q2
• Simultaneously, it is doing $500M in stock buybacks (doing this while having negative cash flow is just a way to prevent dilution from stock-based compensation and prop up a stock price)

In times of crisis, founders are expected to rise to the occasion, to become wartime leaders, to lead their employees to glory and riches. Evan Spiegel’s response? Announcing a stock split that will allow him to sell shares without reducing his super-voting powers.

If you had predicted this outcome a few years ago, you would’ve been a laughingstock. Analyst reports on the company were full of hope, pushing the narrative of augmented reality (AR) and international growth. Investor presentations were filled with bold promises of a future where Snap was an advertising leader. They were so bullish that (only a year ago!) they promised to deliver 50%+ of yearly revenue growth. Instead, in Q2 they only delivered 13%. All of this points to a company that doesn’t understand what is happening to its own business.

All of this happening even after they are known to deliver something unique to their users and fighting the competition for a long time.