By Sheila Dang
(Reuters) – Snap Inc on Wednesday said its subscription service Snapchat+ now has 3 million users, as the tech company aims to diversify its business.
Snapchat+, which launched last year for $3.99 per month, has been a key part of the company’s efforts to expand its revenue beyond digital advertising, which is struggling as some brands cut marketing budgets amid concerns about the economy.
Snap announced the milestone at its Partner Summit on Wednesday, an annual event where it reveals new features for users, content creators and advertisers on its photo messaging app.
The number of subscribers for Snapchat+ indicates the company is seeing success at a time when social media platforms are increasingly seeking to charge users for certain features.
Twitter, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, revamped a subscription product called Twitter Blue in December to make users pay to have their profiles verified.
Independent researcher Travis Brown estimated that Twitter Blue had about 539,000 subscribers as of Sunday.
Snap’s subscription service allows users to gain early access to new features. In February, Snap introduced a generative artificial intelligence chatbot called My AI, which can produce written responses to queries, rolling it out first to Snapchat+ subscribers.
The Santa Monica, California-based company is also working to expand its augmented reality (AR) technology, which can enhance the view of the real world with computerized images.
Last month, Snap launched an enterprise division to help other companies build AR experiences for their own apps and websites.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Santa Monica, California; Editing by Sonali Paul)
