It has been a phenomenal first year for Snapfish in India

Bala Parthasarthy has been one of the co-founders of Snapfish and is a

successful entrepreneur who has helped the business grow to become one of the

worlds leading online photo services sites. Since the launch in India last year

in October, Snapfish has witnessed a phenomenal response in the Indian market;

and the 5 mn pictures stored online and a quarter million albums created are a

testimony to this fact. In an exclusive interview with Dataquest, Parthasarthy

provides an insight into the success of Snapfish India as the Indian consumers

behavior undergoes a change. Excerpts

How did the idea of starting an online photo sharing service strike you?



The journey started way back in mid 1999 when the dotcom boom led to the

formulation of a new idea of uploading film photos on the Web. Snapfish was

formed with the idea to provide a superior service to consumers to help them

upload their film photos on the Web. Consequently, our preliminary research was

focused on identifying the key drivers for this spacewho are the people

clicking the maximum number of pictures? And, how are they clicking these

pictures? The findings threw up some interesting facts which revealed that

mostly it was women who were clicking the pictures, essentially using a film

camera. Snapfish was subsequently launched in 1999 in the US with the objective

of helping women who were not tech savvy, to upload their pictures on the Web.

How has the performance of the HP Snapfish been in the APAC market as

compared to the US and other global markets?



Underpinned by the growing Internet penetration and rising digital camera

sales, the APAC market holds huge potential. We have received unprecedented

growth across the APAC region. Taking cognizance of the market potential and the

evolving consumer preferences for online photo solutions, we launched HP

Snapfish here last year. And as we celebrate our first anniversary, we already

have over 5 mn photos uploaded on the website. Though we didnt do any formal

research but we did leverage industry statistics, which illustrated the growing

mobile and Internet penetration in India. We reckon that India will emerge as

one of the most exciting markets in this space soon.

How has the customer response been in the last one year?



HP Snapfish has witnessed a phenomenal response in the Indian market over

the last one year and has reaffirmed itself as the forerunner in the online

photography space. The 5 mn pictures stored online and a quarter million albums

created are a testimony to this fact. Also, with most of the gifting ideas

getting stale, people are looking for newer and ore exciting ways of greeting

their family and friends. I can say that we at HP Snapfish have the largest

array of products in the online photography space with some of the product sales

being seasonal. Like, this being the end of the year, photo calendars are hugely

popular across the world. In India, with the onset of the wedding season,

photobooks have been increasingly in demand. Collages however remain a favorite

for all seasons.

How did the partnership with Huggies happen?



Huggies being a household name in India has been planning a lot of initiatives
to engage young mothers and parents. The Huggies website (www.huggies.co.in),

launched last month in India, is targeted at the Gen X momsmoms who are

experimental, sophisticated and technology savvy. The co-branded photo center on

the Huggies website is aimed at enabling Huggies moms to print, share and store

unlimited number of photographs of their babies online. With young families

forming the core of our consumer segment, we will be partnering with more

companies targeting similar segments in the Internet space.

Being in the online space, there must be a requirement to change and

innovate your services continuously in order to keep pace with the rapidly

evolving consumer segments?



Innovation is definitely the key for a company like ours. Always taking

cognizance of the changing consumer trends, HP Snapfish has been continuously

introducing product innovations, forming alliances in sync with the consumer

preferences. Our alliance with IndiaPlaza was an endeavor to enable consumers

visiting the worlds largest India-centric online shopping destination to get

the Snapfish experience through the photo centers. Our photobooks, collage

posters and canvas prints are some of the other innovation from the Snapfish

stable which has provided a new meaning to digital photography altogether. Our

latest addition has been the Picture Mover software, an innovative tool that

allows members to effortlessly transfer photos from their digital cameras or

memory card readers to both their PCs and Snapfish accounts without a single

click of their mouse!

What are you future plans for the Indian market?



There are a whole bunch of activities in the offing driven by more

collaborations, product innovations and changing market dynamics. It has been a

phenomenal first year for Snapfish India with over 5 mn photos uploaded. We have

been able to establish ourselves as the leader in an untreaded market. In the

years ahead, HP Snapfish will continue to look for ways to deliver distinguished

service to its customers and create an all-digital-photography landscape in

India. In terms of competition, there are a couple of small players in the

Indian online photography space but with HPs legacy and Snapfishs proven track

record we dont foresee any major competition. Also, security being a big

concern, people trust sharing their photos only with reliable brands such as

ours. HP enjoying the undaunted faith among the Indian consumers makes Snapfish

the ideal choice in the space.

With online photo sharing being a rage in India, word of mouth is working

very well for us as Snapfish offers unlimited free photo sharing. We are

advertising on the Web but havent done print advertising. Collaborations have

formed a key to our marketing initiative enabling us to reach our target

audience in a streamlined manner.

Stuti Das



stutid@cybermedia.co.in