Les Echos, the French business newspaper, offers the story of the three most successful start-ups in the field of smartphones. The tip of a very active iceberg, which is starting to frighten giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Snapchat
It was only born two years ago, but the value has already taken off. Facebook, to get it, put 3 billion dollars on the plate, but the offer was rejected to the sender. To say no were Evan Spiegel, 23, and Bobby Murphy, 25, the two young men who founded Snapchat after completing their studies at Stanford.
The smartphone application allows you to send photos to slo friends for a certain number of seconds. Then the images self-destruct. The malicious say that the system is mainly used for sexting, sending hot images. What is certain is that the numbers say it works.
Within a few months, the service had a dazzling success. The number of photos exchanged on Snapchat has risen from 20 million a day a year ago to 200 million a day in June to 400 million today. On Facebook, for the record, there are fewer photos, 350 million a day.
Among the apps taken into consideration, Whatsapp is undoubtedly the one with the most mature model. Created 4 years ago by two former Yahoo engineers, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, the company claims to be already profitable. The service consists in being able to exchange text messages, photos and videos between mobile phones without going through the costs of the telephone operator. At the beginning it's free, then it costs 99 cents a year, a price that is amortized at the speed of light, if you consider the cost of SMS and MMS. The exponential growth in the number of users – today 350 million – guarantees large revenues, when costs are practically nil.
Whatsapp has managed to form partnerships with mobile phone manufacturers, such as Nokia, which integrate the application into some models. Unlike other similar apps, Whatsapp has grown cautiously, with a single $8 million fundraising from the Sequoia Capital Fund. Last spring, executives said no to a $1 billion offer from Google.
LINE
The Asian market is the most advanced when it comes to mobile devices. It is therefore not surprising that the most prominent start-ups come from China or Japan. Line is a subsidiary of the South Korean group NHN, which operates the Naver search engine, but the social network in question was created in Japan two years ago.
In 24 months, the app seduced 230 million users, a figure that Facebook didn't even have after 5 years of activity. In the last eight months, new enrollments are 130 million. The company recently expanded into Europe, with an office in Spain, where it already has 15 million users.
Line relies on an original model, with the sale of games and virtual content, such as stickers to personalize messages. There is also the possibility of having paid pages for professionals. The turnover could exceed 300 million euros. And next year Line could also land on the Stock Exchange.
