Snapchat only for rich users, not for poor countries like India: Company CEO Evan Spiegel

Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapchat, has reportedly said that India is too 'poor a country' for his company to consider investing in. "This app is only for rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain," he said. 

According to an article in Variety, Spiegel's comment came to light when Snapchat's former employee Anthony Pompliano's allegation against the company were made public on April 10. Snapchat had given up its efforts to keep the complaint redacted. 

Pompliano, in the complaint, said that Spiegel made the comment when he asked him about Snapchat's poor growth in markets like India where there was growing mobile penetration.

He had accused Snapchat of misleading investors by presenting inflated statistics on user data.

Pompliano was hired from Facebook to expand the user base of the Snapchat, only too have fired him following his allegations.

The Economic Times report says India's market is fast growing and it's internet penetration is expected to grow 2.5 times by 2020.