Snap is accelerating its global expansion in countries ranging from Mexico to Japan, through agreements with wireless carriers and highlighting its popular wireless features. augmented realitythe company told Reuters.
The parent company of the photo messaging app Snapchat relies on its relative safety during a period when platforms of social networks What Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Y TikTok are being scrutinized around the world for their harmful content and lax privacy and privacy protections. cybersecurity.
Snap has largely gone unscathed from governments and regulators around the world and has developed a tactic to lure users into new markets that plays on the appeal of its AR (augmented reality) glasses, which can overlay computerized images. about the physical world and ephemeral messaging between close friends.
Since you redesigned your app to Android in mid-2019, which caused Snapchat can be used by more people outside the United States and Europe, where Android phones are more popular than iPhone, the company has reached the milestone of 100 million monthly users in India.
Worldwide, Snap has 500 million monthly users, the company said during its Partner Summit in May, adding that about 40% of its users are outside of North America and Europe.
Now it wants to deepen its presence in India and attract new users in the world, starting with Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Italy and Spain, a strategy that has not yet been reported.
The move reflects how most users of Snapchat are now on Android after the rollout of the improved app, whereas before it was one of the few services used mostly on Apple devices, said Nana Murugesan, Snap’s head of international markets.
“We have seen the fruits of this as Android is driving our growth,” said Murugesan.
Snap’s strategy includes signing deals with telecom carriers and smartphone manufacturers to pre-install Snapchat.
The company said it is in talks with operators in Mexico, Brazil, Italy and Spain to explore agreements such as joint marketing or the inclusion of the application in zero-rate plans, which allow customers to use an application without counting mobile data caps, a tactic that fueled Facebook’s early expansion into regions where wireless data was expensive.
Snap is also opening new offices in Tokyo, Milan and Madrid this year to support its growth plans, according to the company.
The expansion plan includes organizing workshops with high school and college students to promote the app to young users, adding multimedia content in local languages to its feature Discover on Snapchat, which hosts original shows from entertainment studios, and the rollout of AR filters for photos and videos celebrating local parties and events.
In addition to focusing on augmented reality, Snap has positioned itself in recent years as an app for keeping in touch with a close group and in which public content is reviewed by the company, which distinguishes it from apps like TikTok, in which content creators aim to go viral.
The image could help Snap more easily enter markets in Asia, where families are very careful about influencing their children, said Shailesh Rao, a former Google and Twitter executive who worked on the international expansion.
“There’s a premium on security, and there’s a premium on knowing your privacy is protected,” he said.