Yubo, the latest social application, lets users chat about all kinds of topics and hang out live via video. This app is known to be used largely by Generation Z, and this platform is winning over more and more investors. This significant growth was driven by COVID-19 lockdowns and stay-at-home mandates. This social application has declared new plans to build new safety features after raising significant funds.
Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and the latest application to be trending is Yubo. This social networking application is attracting a lot of new users and fans which mainly consist of Generation Z. Yubo, the alternative social networking app has gained about 40 million users worldwide — half of whom alone are in the United States, despite being launched in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia, 5 years prior.
A French start-up designed this application and Sacha Lazimi, Jérémie Aouate, and Arthur Patora developed it in 2015 and decided to break into the international market first.
What is Yubo?
Yubo allows users to make friends all over the world using video features. This feature enables the users to chat, talk, and hang out with their friends, just like in real life. The application uses an algorithm that is specifically designed to bring together people of the same age and interests. Despite the application being free, it is based on the freemium model that awards the paying users to utilise the extra features. This app is known to not rely on advertising, unlike other applications.
The pandemic helped in boosting Yubo’s growth
With lockdown measures enforced in various countries to halt the spread of COVID-19, teens flooded onto social media to socialize which proved to be a profitable situation for the French start-up.
The Yubo press statement put forth, “In 2020, the time spent in live streams increased by 400%, as 100,000 live streams are launched every day.”
In all Yubo, has raised over $60 million (around P2.8 billion) in funds in less than a year. It is expected that the company will be eyeing the Asian markets and multiplying its workforce by 10. Yubo expects to end 2020 by doubling its 2019 turnover, ending the year with revenue of $20 million (around P964 million).
Yubo’s fame leads to Snapchat partnership
The platform was not always able to effectively tackle chats featuring explicit content, which in turn affected its reputation as it has limited resources. The founders are keen to find a remedy to this problem. With the freshly raised funds, the French firm is planning to boost real-time moderation and check on the operators’ real ages.
The successful attempt of Yubo has grabbed the attention of one of the most famous social networking apps. Yubo has declared a partnership with Snapchat that will help it to bring Snapchat’s camera and augmented reality lenses to the Yubo platform.
Another notable progress for Yubo is gaining the YouTube agenda as Yubo’s users will be able to access the content from this platform. In order to make Yubo a veritable global hangout, games and new activities are planned to enrich the user experience.
