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After a poor quarter and slowing user growth, Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) is carrying out a major overhaul to the app as an attempt to reach a broader audience.
On Tuesday, the firm reported losses of more than $400 million (£337 million) in the quarter. After the news, shares in the tech company plummeted as much as 20 percent in early-hours trading.
“One thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use, and our team has been working on responding to this feedback. As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use,” said Chief executive Evan Spiegel in a statement.
“There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don’t yet know how the behaviour of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application. We’re willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial long-term benefits to our business.”
The business has struggled in the past year, with user growth continually below analyst expectations.
The redesigned Snapchat app will have more of a focus on “personalized content service”, seen on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB).
The company will also “building a new version of our Android application from the ground up that we will launch in select markets before rolling it out widely.”
The earnings report came soon after Snap had to deny the rumours it was shutting down.
Snap is not the only tech firm looking into redesigning. Twitter has announced plans to double the word count from 140 to 280 characters.
Snapchat’s earnings letter did not provide a date for the app’s overhaul.