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Snapchat: A Look at its Acquisitions and Numbers in Latin America

Six years after Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, CEO and CTO of Snap Inc., respectively, developed their image exchange application at Stanford University, Snapchat has become a mainstay of the millennials' social life—successfully evolving from a scorned application for sending fleeting photos to a messaging platform with new content formats.

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Six years after Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, CEO and CTO of Snap Inc., respectively, developed their image exchange application at Stanford University, Snapchat has become a mainstay of the millennials’ social life—successfully evolving from a scorned application for sending fleeting photos to a messaging platform with new content formats.

Snapchat recently acquired location analysis firm Placed for approximately US $125 million, according to Bloomberg estimates. This acquisition has several advantages and the potential for good results, such as the ability to measure store visits and offline revenues generated by digital, TV and out of home ads. Placed has its own audience, made up of those who have chosen to share their location with the app as well as third-party audiences.

The company will continue to operate as an independent entity, offering its 100+ employees the chance to stay on with the company if they so wish.

Last April, Snapchat launched its own online-to-offline measurement product called Snap to Store. Through it, Snapchat can recognize when a person uses the app in a specific location, such as a store, restaurant or movie theater, and then check if the person saw an advertisement for the brand on the platform.

It also invested between US$ 250-350 million in the functionality of ‘Snap Map,’ which allows app users to share their location with their contacts through geolocation. If a user wants to upload photos to their account, their contacts will be able to know from what location they were uploaded.

Snapchat numbers in LatAm

Snapchat is already a familiar name in Latin America, but its users represent a limited demographic. Eighty-five percent of Snapchat’s 158 million daily users are between the ages of 18 and 34. Only 15% of users are 35 years or older. The company’s goal at the moment is to promote the monetization of its users by generating more engagement.

Snapchat has 10 million users in Mexico, with a breakdown of 7 million women and 3 million men. In Colombia, the app has 5 million users: 3 million women and 2 million men. In both countries, the user age is 18-25. In addition, users spend more than 30 minutes a day on the app and open it more than 20 times a day, according to Snap Inc. figures.

Snapchat numbers in the U.S.

Snapchat already concentrates about 70% of its U.S. users in the18-24 age bracket, and about 40% are ages 25-34, according to comScore. (This figure is reduced to 14% for users aged 35 and over).
Some studies show that users over 35 were Snapchat’s fastest-growing segment between 2015 and 2016. However, growth within that age group came from a small base. The percentage of total Snapchat users in the U.S. that is older than 35 is expected to increase only 2%, from 18.3% in 2016 to 20.4% in 2017, according to eMarketer. In comparison, about 88% of Facebook users are over 35 years old, and 45% of Instagrammers are in the same age bracket.

These demographics are mainly due to young people’s familiarity with apps, versus the older population. “The [Snapchat] experience is difficult,” said Tero Kuittinen, chief strategist at app measuring company Kuuhubbs. “It is not easy to learn how to use it. If you’re 18, it’s not a big deal, but if you’re 45, it’s hard to understand it.”

[ctalatamb]

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