A vending machine for Snapchat Spectacles by Snap Inc. stands in Universal City, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018. Snap's first earnings beat as a public company, prompted at least five upgrades from analysts after the social-media company reported fourth-quarter revenue and daily active users ahead of estimates. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Snap Inc is introducing a new version of Spectacles, the colourful sunglasses that take videos for posting on its mobile app. And this time, the company is going to be smarter about predicting demand.
The previous version of Spectacles made its debut in November 2016 and was sold, at first, through cartoonish-looking vending machines in strategic locations. That produced a lot of hype and long lines, but not a lot of demand. Snap sold 220,000 pairs of the glasses, but ordered many more, and ended up taking a US$39.9mil (RM156.38mil) writedown and cutting some employees.
