SnapChat filters are one of the most popular ways for users to interact with augmented reality (AR) content. Whilst the company has not had a great six months in terms of earnings, CEO Evan Spiegel says it has created the world’s first AR superstar with its animated AR Hot Dog.
SnapChat has seen its stock prices plunge after two consecutive quarterly reports that showed disappointing numbers, with low user growth and a loss of more than $2 billion (USD) for the first quarter, which was partially a result of employees being paid in stock. Rather than focus on those disappointments, though, Spiegel touted the success of the dancing Hot Dog animation, noting it had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.
“Our dancing hot dog is most likely the world’s first augmented reality superstar,” Spiegel said. The popular anthropomorphic Hot Dig filter has become phenomenally successful, resulting in the creation of various memes and speculation that SnapChat may be looking for a way to capitalise on that success with some sort of monetisation, potentially involving merchandising, a premium version of the filter or licensing for advertising use.
Spiegel and Snap are emphasising that success and the current positive metric of revenue generated per user along with its growth potential, but some analysts are seeing trouble ahead for SnapChat, with its stock currently valued under $12 a share, compared to price when it began trading on 2nd March at $24 a share. There has been some suggestion that the employees who were paid in stock may choose to sell rather than risk the prices dropping further, with the potential of that driving prices down even further.
VRFocus will continue to report on other developments within the AR and VR industry.
via Mint VR