The quirky popularity of Spectacles further endears users to Snapchat, he said, but doubted that such niche products can propel the user growth Snap needs in the long term.
The greatest impediment to Snap’s innovation efforts, however, may be its hefty losses: the company lost $515 million last year on $404 million in sales. Revenue from Spectacles. was “not material,” according to Snap’s IPO filing.
Snap, like Amazon.com, is expecting public investors to allow the company to lose money for years on the promise that more investment in innovation will pay off later.
“They are going to have to get the Amazon pass – investors that don’t care in the short run,” Elsheshai said.
(Reporting by Heather Somerville; Additional reporting by Julia Love; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Tomasz Janowski)
