American multinational technology and social media company Snap Inc. is opening a new office in China as it seeks to boost its presence in the country, the company announced.
The move comes despite the fact that Snap’s flagship service Snapchat is banned in China. It is expected that the company’s Chinese operations will mainly focus on Spectacles.
According to a report released by CNN, the company has set up an office in the city of Shenzhen. The company already carried out assembling of its Spectacles in China. However, the new office is expected to focus on research and development work. Snap has already hired 20 people for the office.
Spectacles, which forms the company’s first physical product, offers video recording facility. It also lets users transmit pictures using WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.
The news of the company’s new office was first spotted through its job advertisements posted on WeChat. Snap’s endeavor in China will help the company in learning more about the technological ecosystem prevailing in the country.
China is an attractive market for technology companies as it has the highest population in the world. The country also has the highest number of internet users in world. However, the country also has strict rules governing technology companies, especially the social media ventures. Snapchat is banned in the country, as is the Facebook.
Snap also has previous ties to technological companies in China. In 2015, Alibaba reportedly invested $200 million in the American firm. It is also rumored that Tencent also has stake in Snap through its $60 million fundraising round, which was carried out in 2013. – BusinessNewsAsia.com