After launching the premium service in June as a new revenue stream, Snap, the parent company of the social media app Snapchat, announced on Monday that it had attracted 1 million customers. Due to record-high inflation, which is forcing firms to cut back on their marketing expenditures, social media giants Snap, Twitter, and Meta Platforms—all of which get the majority of their revenue from selling digital advertising—are dealing with a deteriorating ad market. After reporting poor second-quarter profits last month, Snap’s shares fell by 25%. This was due to weaker advertising demand than what Wall Street had anticipated. CEO Evan Spiegel stated that the business would strive to accelerate revenue growth, in part through new sources of income. In the US, Snapchat’s $3.99 (about Rs 300) monthly subscription fee grants access to 11 premium features that aren’t yet available to regular users. New Snapchat app icon designs and the option for subscribers to have their messages seen more often by celebrities on Snapchat are two of the four new features that were unveiled on Monday. Users of Snapchat can access the app on PCs as well. According to Snap, the paid membership functionality is now available in 25 locations worldwide, including Saudi Arabia, India, and Egypt. Twitter previously introduced a $4.99 (about Rs 400) per month subscription service called Twitter Blue. Elon Musk, a billionaire, is currently engaged in a court dispute with Twitter over his effort to back out of his $44 billion (roughly Rs 3,49,970 crore) commitment to purchase the firm. As of right now, neither Facebook nor Instagram provides paid subscriptions.
