Facebook has tried to buy Snow, the Asian Snapchat clone.
Facebook has recently been trying to improve their service by adding new and exciting features, which some have been more or less inspired by Snapchat. After the company wasn’t able to buy Snapchat for $3 billion three years ago, they have been looking for other players on the market that offer a similar experience. As such, Facebook recently attempted to acquire the Asian Snapchat clone, Snow.
Snow is a messaging service app developed by Naver, a South-Korean company currently valued at $25-billion. Facebook interest in the app has been revealed by Tech Crunch via a source close to the company. However, Facebook is not alone in expressing interest in the Snapchat clone. The app has attracted offers Tencent, the developer of WeChat, Alibaba, and other companies.
However, Naver has declined all offers, including Facebook’s. The company might have been inspired by Snapchat’s success after it refused to sell, who is preparing to go public and might be valued at $25 billion. Snow isn’t doing too bad either. The app has over 80 million downloads at the moment and seems to add another 10 million every month.
Snow seems to have tapped a market left wide open by Snapchat obvious lack of interest in the Asian region. After Facebook saw its emerging success, Mark Zuckerberg decided to call Naver’s CEO, Hae-Jin Lee, to express his interest in acquiring the app. However, they didn’t reach any deal as Naver hopes to build on Snow’s potential and make it an app that meets the same consumer needs as Snapchat and more.
Although the apps are similar in nature, Snow does have some features that differentiate it from Snapchat. Naver is closely working with celebrities in Japan and South-Korea, markets with the highest interest in the app, to include their stories in the app. This makes users return to the app for more reasons than just to message their friends.Snow also has a considerably larger selection of customization options including over 36 filters and more than 200 masks, localized to the culture of the regions.
The future of Snow looks bright but it’s relatively early to determine if it will be able to build on its potential and become an app that will make Facebook rue its inability to acquire it.
Deborah Campbell
