Snow, Asia's Snapchat Clone, Sets Sights on Global Expansion

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, according to Bloomberg. While Snow, based in 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 noticed that Snapchat was struggling to break into Asia. They banded together to see if they could come up with something better.

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. 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 and Tencent, as well as on Apple's App Store.

While Snap 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 as soon as next year.

It's no coincidence that Snow emerged from a project at Naver, the internet company behind the Line messaging app. Line, which went public earlier this year, has also carved out a similar niche with a plethora of stamps that people download and send to each other. It's one of the few messaging platforms that brings in revenue, from ads and stamp sales. For now, Naver hasn't sought to monetize Snow's growing pool of users.

Snow has attracted the interest of Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba, according to tech website TechCrunch, but the CEO is planning to go it alone. "It is true a number of companies have been showing interest in Snow," said Kim, who will be an investment adviser on a new joint 50 billion won ($53 million) fund between Naver and SoftBank Ventures Korea Corp., which will invest in content businesses.