Consumer Technology
A Decade Of Snapchat Having launched 10 years ago, Snapchat today is facing a significant competitor in ByteDance’s TikTok, but it’s still one of the world’s most successful social networks. Over the last decade, Snapchat has racked up a total of 281 million downloads, making co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy billionaires in the process. As of 2021, Snapchat ranked as the seventh most popular app worldwide, according to data by Apptopia. Its growth has also benefited the co-founders. After exceeding expectations in its second-quarter earnings, CEO Spiegel’s net worth jumped to $13.7 billion, while chief technology officer Murphy’s valuation was pegged at $15.1 billion as of August 15, 2021. The duo owns 13% and 15%, respectively. Here’s a look at some highlights of the social platform’s meteoric rise and fall over the last decade.
2011
2012
In July 2011, Stanford students Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown initially worked on an app called Picaboo that could send photos that disappeared after a certain amount of time. Later that year, in September, Spiegel and Murphy ousted Brown and relaunched the company in the App Store.
Picaboo was renamed Snapchat in 2012. By July that year, 110 million snaps had been sent through the new social network. Only three months later in October, the figure touched a billion and the app officially launched in the Android Store. Snapchat shifted from photo-only to offer video snaps in December. Instead of toggling back and forth between a camera’s photo and video setting, the app combined them into one button. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg realized the potential value in the attention Snapchat was receiving. He reportedly offered the founders $60 million in 2012 to buy the firm. Facebook launched Poke, a competing app, after Snapchat rejected the buyout offer. In the same year, Facebook acquired Instagram for about $1 billion.
F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M
In October 2013, the app’s core offering evolved into stories, enabling users to post a series of snaps that would remain active and viewable for 24 hours.
2013
BY JAMILA GANDHI; DEBBY WONG / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM; PHOTO BY BERTRAND GUAY / AFP
LEADERBOARD
22
SEPTEMBER 2021
