Snap Inc. CEO remark on India pulls Snapchat app ratings to ‘One Star’; e-commerce app 'Snapdeal' faces heat too

[Tuskd]

This is a couple of days old, but hilarious nonetheless. people are uninstalling Snapchat and leaving 1 star reviews because of CEO's comment that Snapchat is only for rich people and not for poor people like India and Spain. Not sure how Spain took it, but a lot of Indians are offended by it and #boycottsnapchat is trending on Twitter

 

Quote

A day after news broke out regarding Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel’s disinterest in expanding the business to “poor countries” like India, the rating of the popular app dropped to a “single star” from an apparent “five star” on the App Store.

According to the app info on App Store, the “Customer Ratings” of the current version of the app was “single star” (based on 6,099 ratings) and all versions rating was “one and half star” (based on 9,527 ratings) as on Sunday morning. The rating for the app on Android Play Store was “four star” (based on 11,932,996 ratings).

The bashing started when US-based news website Variety on Saturday quoted Snapchat’s ex-employee Anthony Pompliano as saying that company CEO Evan Spiegel in September 2015 told him that “the app is only for rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain”. Indians did not take the comment lightly and took to social media to lash out at the statement from the CEO. As the ratings of the app dropped, the criticism of the CEO and the app increased.

 *Emphasis mine*

Source: http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/snap-inc-ceo-remarks-snowball-pulling-down-snapchat-app-ratings-to-one-star-on-app-store-371974.html

 

Snapchat has refuted the claim, but the uninstall trend continues.

Source: http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/snap-inc-brushes-off-allegations-that-snapchat-ceo-dismissed-india-as-a-poor-country-371954.html

Interestingly, another casualty of this incident is the e-commerce app "Snapdeal". People mistook Snapchat CEO's remark for Snapdeal.

Source: https://thenextweb.com/in/2017/04/17/this-indian-shopping-app-is-getting-1-star-reviews-because-its-name-is-similar-to-snapchat/

*Facepalm*

Backstory on Snapdeal. The eCommerce app backed by SoftBank is already facing a lot of problems for being unable to complete with Amazon and Flipkart and its CEO is facing criminal charges. This just adds more salt to its wounds.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Tuskd
Edited to specify Indian context.