We live in a strange world of photo editors/filters and people obsessed with photo shopping their Selfies till they look like Euro trash versions of themselves and have blue eyes.
This chaotic market share graph is reflective of how people’s obsession with their looks has evolved over time. We’ve already written a fair bit about Prisma — you can read about that here.
I should point out, that photo editors for a lot of people aren’t just about looking ‘better’ online than they do in real life. It’s also a form of entertainment. In the absence of a consistent internet connection, this is how many people entertain themselves by fiddling with videos and photos all day long and sharing this content with their friends.
Beauty Plus, for example, is an App that has more than 10% market share in the photo editing space. Its features include ‘erase blemishes, smooth skin, brighten eyes, whiten teeth, edit eye color, add filters and special effects, blur photos and so much more.’ So much indeed. Here’s an example of what you could do:
The other notable company in this graph is ‘PicsArt Photo Studio & Collage’. It boasts of over 400 million global installs and had nearly 30% market share in India before falling to 17% where it stands now. But it’s worth asking — what exactly are these companies building? At 400 million users, you have the seed audience to build pretty much anything — a social network? An ad targeting platform? Well, a social network might be difficult. But an ad network is doable.
One of these products — Photo Grid — is owned by Cheetah Mobile — the Chinese Internet company worth over $ 1.5 Billion. Are they simply using this data to improve their own ad targeting engine? Or do they actually look at each of these apps as a standalone business with in-app purchases as the main source of revenue? My guess is the former.
In India, most products with large download footprints (such as in devotion & gaming) are content to remain reliant on Google’s ad network to monetize their user bases. They don’t graduate beyond this initial milestone of success and actually build out an ad network because it’s too much work. But the effort is well worth the rewards.
This is an informative (if dated) article on Cheetah Mobile if you want to learn more about them. They’ve worked hard to understand customers beyond the Chinese market and build products that resonate with a global audience. This focus had helped them get to over 600 million monthly active users and revenues of $650 Million in 2016!!
Some food for thought for those still undecided about the benefits of building an ad network.
Thanks for your time,
Ashish
- Team KG
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You can reach me on ashish@kalagato.com
