👻 Snap: The New Space To Shop?

Uber's $250 million stimulus. Apple to enforce privacy notifications.

Hey Global Investor, here's what you need to know before the US markets open.

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👻 Snap: The New Space To Shop?

Snap Inc. (SNAP) has recently acquired a shopping platform called Screenshot, part of its strategy to expand into e-commerce. (Tweet This)

Background
Founded in 2011, the CA-based company has come a long way. Snapchat’s ephemeral texts and videos became a rage with teenagers and prompted Mark Zuckerberg to make a $3B unsolicited takeover offer. When Snap founder Evan Spiegel balked, Facebook-owned Instagram sprung into action copying Snap’s “Stories” feature for its audience. That Snap’s popularity plummeted and adapted the idea to its audience. to its “Stories” which ultimately were copied by Instagram only heightened the sense of vendetta and intrigue.

Unfazed, Snap continued with product innovations such as AR, Lenses, and more emphasis on Filters. Even as the pandemic tightened its grip around the world, Snap flew to new heights, touching $100B in market value; daily active users (DAUs) grew to 265M by the fall of 2020, up 22% from a year ago.

With AR & Social Commerce becoming larger trends, Snap has been looking to plug the gaps in its product portfolio and make it a stickier proposition to its users. 

What Happened?
In the quest for putting this ecosystem together, Snap has acquired Fit Analytics, Ariel AI, and Screenshop within a year. Snap’s aggressive expansion into Social Commerce aligns with its development of AR spectacles, to deliver the best online shopping experience.

For instance, Fit Analytics uses smartphone cameras to recommend correct garment sizes for the user, while shopping online. Ariel AI has the technology to represent any individual in a 3D model. And Screenshop scans user photos to learn user fashion choices and offers clothing recommendations. 

Connecting the dots, it's not hard to understand Snap’s ambitious plan. It’s not new for social media companies to try and expand into e-commerce - think Facebook and Tik Tok; Snap is looking to make it an even more immersive experience by bringing these recent acquisitions into its product offering. 

The elephant in the room that’s giving a cold sweat to all these social and e-commerce players is Apple (AAPL). The Silicon Valley giant is amping up its new privacy features that will empower the user immensely and potentially disallow these players from gathering data that is taken for granted today. Snap reportedly is exploring ways to gather user data which can prove to be very risky.

If Snap is successful in this endeavour, without breaking Apple’s rules, it’ll be driving a monumental shift in the way people shop online with the snap of a finger!  

Market Reaction: SNAP closed the day at $60.23, up 5.89%; the stock is up 1.63% in pre-market trading.

Company Snapshot 📈

SNAP $60.23 +3.35 (+5.89%)

Analyst Ratings (39 Analysts) BUY 67%   HOLD 31%   SELL 3%

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Newsworthy 📰

• Secrets: Facebook does not plan to notify half-billion users affected by data leak (FB +2.23%)

• Protection: Apple to start enforcing new app privacy notifications in coming weeks (AAPL +1.34%)

• Amends: Uber announces $250 million stimulus to bring back drivers (UBER -2.00%)

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Later Today 🕒

• 6:00 PM IST: Initial jobless claims

• 6:00 PM IST: Continuing jobless claims

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Fun Fact of The Day 🌞

Most Disney characters wear gloves to keep animation simple

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