Snow, Asia’s Snapchat clone, sets sights on global expansion

Bloomberg

Snow, a Snapchat clone that’s conquering Asia, is now setting its sights beyond the region, betting that it can attract users with stickers that sometimes border on the bizarre.
While Snow, based in Bundang, South Korea, mostly replicates Snapchat’s features, there’s something for everyone among its 400 live-motion filters, which include everything from a dancing octopus to Super Saiyan hair. By comparison, Snapchat offers about two dozen filters, which are renewed daily. “We actually have a desire to succeed by directly providing our services in the global market,” Kim Chang-wook, Snow’s chief executive officer, said at a company event this week. “That’s why we’re moving fast to make sure we have leadership in Asia first.”
Snow got its start last year, when a group of engineers at web-search provider Naver Corp. noticed that Snapchat was struggling to break into Asia. They banded together to see if they could come up with something better. Naver shares rose 3.5 percent to 771,000 won on Friday.
Now, with more than 80 million downloads, the Snow app has been near or at No. 1 among downloads for iOS and Android phones this year in Japan, Singapore and South Korea, according to App Annie, which collects app data. Snow has also taken off in China, where Snapchat is blocked. Snow is among the top 100 downloads on major third-party Chinese app markets, including those run by Baidu Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., as well as on Apple’s App Store.
“It is true downloads are exploding,” said Park Jung-hoon, associate consulting director at Kantar TNS, a data-consulting unit of Kantar Group Ltd. “The various visual effects, that are not just pretty but also bizarre, likely appealed to young folks looking for something more entertaining than just a camera app.”
While Snap Inc., the new name of the Los Angeles-based company behind Snapchat, has amassed more than 60 million daily users, it hasn’t made any significant inroads in Asia, and ranked below 450 by downloads last week for iOS and Android in Japan and Korea, according to App Annie. Snap, which fetched a valuation of $18 billion in its last funding round, is eyeing an initial public offering.