Who owns Snapchat?
If you’re having the same question inside your mind, you’re in the right place.
Snapchat is undoubtedly a popular social media platform with over 406 million daily active users worldwide.
This platform is especially popular among young and Genz audiences who love to share pictures with their friends and family members.
The culture of Snapchat has been growing rapidly over the past few years as young people are choosing Snapchat over other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
With this huge rise in growth, it makes every wonder who owns Snapchat and runs the platform from behind the scenes.
Well, to solve this mystery for you, in this post, we’ll be discussing the ownership of Snapchat, the origin of this platform, and some other related questions that pop up in your mind.
So without wasting any further time, let’s dive right in.
Who Owns Snapchat?
Snapchat is owned by the parent company “Snap INC”.
Yes, unlike other big platforms like Instagram and YouTube that are being owned by big companies like Meta and Google, Snapchat holds 100% ownership of the platform.
In fact, in 2013, Mark Zuckerberg (The CEO and largest shareholder of Facebook) made an attempt to buy a 100% stake in Snapchat for a whopping $3 Billion.
But fortunately, Snapchat’s founders rejected the offer and decided to not sell the company.
Luckily, this turned out to be an insanely beneficial move as Snapchat gained more popularity and users in the next couple of years of this acquisition attempt.
Some reports say Facebook tried to buy Snapchat again 3 years after its first attempt, but Snap’s CEO and founder Evan Spiegel rejected the deal once again.
No one knows the reason why Snap’s founders rejected the deal because back then it was a lucrative price for a platform that was just two years old.
Maybe they had a vision or maybe they just didn’t want to get taken over by a huge monopoly like Facebook who always tries to buy out their threats.
Whatever the reason might be, today, Snapchat is a huge company with millions of users using the platform.
So maybe, not getting acquired by Facebook turned out to be a game changer for them as they had the freedom to try and experiment with new features useful for the users.
Origin Story of Snapchat
Snapchat is an American social media platform that was started in September 2011 by three Stanford students Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy.
Initially, Reggie Brown came up with the idea of this platform which allows people to share videos and photos that would disappear once the other user sees it.
In the beginning, the original name of the app was “Picaboo” until they were handed over a notice from another company who has already trademarked the brand name.
Then two months later, they changed the name to “Snapchat” and relaunched the app once again.
The app was initially available for iOS users only and exactly after one year they launched the Android version of the app in the Play Store.
In 2013, Snapchat introduced two features “Story” and “Chat”, which turned out to be a game changer for them.
Snapchat was the first platform that introduced the “24-hour” story feature. This means the story would automatically disappear from your profile after 24 hours of your posting time.
They did the same thing with chats as well. Once the end users would read your text, the chat will automatically disappear.
Eventually, in a pretty controversial move, Instagram copied this same “Story” feature from Snapchat and introduced it on their platform.
But Snapchat did not just stop there.
They introduced many more features in the following years like Video calling, Snapcash, Geofilters, and much more.
They were just relentless in improving their platform.
By 2015, Snapchat had already reached a 75 million monthly active user base.
In 2017, Snapchat created a new parent company called “Snap Inc.” and kicked off its IPO (Initial public offering) with a whopping $25 billion valuation.
Snapchat is not owned by one person.
In fact, it’s not owned by the three founders as well.
Snapchat is a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and many private institutions and individual investors have invested their money in Snapchat.
Firstly, let’s have a look at three of the top individual shareholders of Snap that hold the majority of the stake:
- Robert Murphy – Owns 5.4% of the company.
- Evan Spiegel – Owns 3.1% of the company.
- Jeremi Gorman – Owns 0.1% of the company.
Besides that, there are some other individual investors as well that hold a significant share of the company via the open stock market.
On the flip side, institutional investors own the majority chunk of the company ranging between 47 – 62%.
Here are some of the top Institutional shareholders of Snap Inc.:
- T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. – Owns 10.1% of the company.
- Vanguard Group Inc. – Owns 6.0% of the company.
- Edgewood Management LLC – Owns 5.0% of the company.
So, overall, if you look from a broader lens, the majority of Snap Inc. ownership is held by big private institutions.
And their own founders have relatively less equity compared to that.
Snapchat Net Worth
As of 2023, the current net worth of market cap of Snapchat is $21.7B.
The current market cap of Snapchat is almost 6 times lower than its all-time high. Currently, the stock is trading at $13.06.
In September 2021, the stock price hit an all-time high of $83.11 and soon after crashed to just $7.76.
To be honest, the company is currently underpriced as it has failed to grab the attention of investors due to its continuous loss.
To this date, Snapchat has never made a profit even though they are generating billions of revenue.
In 2022 alone, Snapchat made a revenue of $4.6 Billion while its losses climbed up to $1.4 Billion.
FAQs Related to Snapchat Ownership
Who is the CEO of Snapchat?
One of the co-founders, Evan Spiegel is the current CEO of Snapchat.
Is Snapchat owned by China?
No, Snapchat is not owned by China. Snapchat is a purely American company and most of its large shareholders are also from this same country.
Is it safe to use Snapchat?
Yes, it’s completely safe to use Snapchat as long as you’re taking care of your own privacy by not sharing any personal or sensitive details with anyone on the platform.
Who is the biggest investor in Snapchat?
Rowe Price Associates Inc. is the biggest institutional investor in Snapchat with 10.1% ownership of the company. When it comes to individual shareholders, Robert Murphy holds the majority of the stake with 5.4% ownership of the company.
What was Snapchat’s original name?
Snapchat’s original name was “Picaboo”. But soon after launching their app, they got a legal notice from a company that holds the trademark for the brand name “Picaboo”, so eventually they had to rebrand the app to “Snapchat”.
How old is Snapchat?
As of 2023, Snapchat is 12 years old.
Is Snapchat owned by Facebook?
No, Snapchat is not owned by Facebook. Although they made an attempt to acquire the company for $3 Billion in 2014, but Snapchat’s co-founders rejected the offer.
Does Google own Snapchat?
No, Google as well does not own Snapchat. Snapchat is owned by its parent company “Snap Inc.”
Conclusion
So we hope now you have a clear understanding of who owns Snapchat.
Snapchat is a publicly traded company and it’s technically owned by plenty of investors. In fact, you can also own Snapchat by purchasing their stock on the New York Stock Exchange.
However, the majority stake in the company is owned by a couple of individual investors like Robert Murphy, Evan Spiegel, and Jeremi Gorman, along with institutional investors like T. Rowe Price Associates, Vanguard, and Edgewood Management.
