Barely a few months after its formalization, the Pixy drone is already bowing out. According to the wall street journalSnap would have ended the production of its gadget after disappointing quarterly results.
Pixy is over. Snap, the company behind the popular Snapchat application, will end production of its drone released just a few months ago, we learn. wall street journal.
Formalized at the end of April 2022, the Pixy was to be an affordable and easy-to-use drone, capable of transforming into a 2.0 selfie stick. After the Spectacles connected glasses, it was the second product to leave the factories of Snapchat, which seeks to diversify its activities beyond simple mobile applications.
Snapchat in turmoil
Unfortunately, the gadget was far from convincing. As we noted during our hands-on, the Pixy suffered from serious autonomy problems in addition to delivering rather poor photo quality. At the same time, Snap’s expectations for this product were not extraordinary, with the company’s CEO admitting from the start that only a limited number of units would be released.
But the problematic period that the company is going through will have got the better of these weak ambitions. Hit hard by Apple’s change in ad tracking policy, Snapchat’s business model (which relies on targeted advertising) has taken a turn for the worse. Competition from TikTok in the sector hasn’t helped either. The company’s stock has crashed more than 80% in the past year, and in July the firm posted the worst quarterly results in its history, sending the stock’s stock price down another 40%.
The Pixy still on sale (for now)
Snap is far from the only company to suffer from the current economic situation. Facebook recently had to shut down its Portal branch after disappointing results. Netflix, Twitter and Microsoft also got rid of some of their vital forces to focus on their flagship products. A radical change in tone after the frenzy of hiring and projects of all kinds to which Silicon Valley has accustomed us.
Snap is not going to stop marketing its drone right away. Products still in stock will continue to be sold. As of this writing, the Pixy is still available for €250. The medium-term future, on the other hand, seems to be much bleaker for the small, colorful drone.