Technology

Snap Faces an Uphill Battle in Brazil

The company says a new Android version of its app could spur growth, but it may be too late.

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By Sarah Frier

April 25, 2019 at 10:00 AM UTC

Corrected

April 25, 2019 at 8:43 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the April 29, 2019 issue of businessweek.

As a law student at Brazil’s Universidade Federal do Maranhão in 2014, Thaynara Oliveira Gomes found that posting videos on Snapchat was a good way to relieve academic stress and feel less alone. The twentysomething quickly built a following, appealing to viewers with her charming accent, from the Brazilian coastal city of São Luís. By 2016, with more than a million followers, Oliveira Gomes had become the most famous Snapchatter in Brazil. Being an influencer had its perks—she was making more from touting brands to her followers than she would have earned as a lawyer.

But there wasn’t any growth potential for Oliveira Gomes on Snapchat. The app’s designers built it first for iPhone users, yet most people in Brazil own Android devices and the Android version was buggy and hogged data. Instagram introduced its Stories video feature soon after Oliveira Gomes gained her millionth follower, so she decided to post her videos there. Today she has 3.4 million Instagram followers and no longer uses the app that made her famous.