There are tons of social media platforms in today’s world. But there are only a few popular ones that people all over the world use. You will not like these social media platforms if all of them are the same. It is their different features that make them more interesting and fun. A couple of decades ago all of this was not available. There was no concept of social media platforms. When they arrived the first social media platforms were not like how they are today. They only acted as a medium through which they could share their information and nothing more than that. But the way they evolved is something that no one has imagined. People who have used the early social media platforms would have never thought that they would be using them every day. All of this was possible because of social media platforms like Facebook. 

It really changed the way people viewed social networking sites. People stopped seeing social media platforms as a medium to share information instead they started to see them as a medium to connect with people all over the world. Everyone fell in love with this concept of being able to reach out to anyone from anywhere in the world. You can be at the remotest corner of your country but you can still keep in touch with your friend who lives in a different country using social media platforms. All of you know about some popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter because they have been around for a long time. But there are some social media platforms that came into the picture recently which became quite famous. One such social media application is Snapchat. Snapchat is the latest love of people who have been using social media for a long time. It became popular very quickly but people still don’t know much about it. Many people don’t know who owns the application. This article will tell you about that. But before that let’s know a little bit about the company.

History of Snapchat

This social media platform was founded by Reggie Brown, Evan Spiegel, and Bobby Murphy. The idea was first introduced by Reggie Brown. He thought that there should be a platform where people could post pictures that would disappear after some time. They wanted to go forward with this idea and wanted to create an application that will have this feature. Evan Spiegel has business experience but not coding. So they wanted someone who is good at coding. This is when Bobby Murphy came into the picture. But Snapchat was not the initial name given to the application. It was first launched on the iOS store with the name Picaboo. The name was changed to Snapchat when the app was relaunched in the year 2011. This time the application was more efficient and offered a better user experience. Not only that but the mascot of the company was changed. It was designed by Brown who named it Ghostface chillah which was inspired by the rapper Ghostface Killah from the famous rap group Wu-Tang Clan.

The journey was not as smooth as people would assume. There was a lot of internal conflict going on between the founders of the company. All of it started when Reggie Brown wanted to discuss his equity in the company. The company lawyers said that Reggie Brown did not have any creative contribution to the company. They also accused Brown of falsely claiming to be the inventor of Snapchat.  All of that was over when Reggie Brown settled for $157 million dollars and recognized one of the original founders. By the end of November in 2012 people had already shared more than one billion photos on Snapchat. Everyday users were sharing more than 20 million photos on Snapchat. Due to the increase in user base, Snapchat was facing some difficulty in scalability. They released an updated version in 2013 which was not only better but also had more features. 

Snapchat also released Snapkidz for users under 13 years. By the end of 2015 people sharing more than 6 billion videos per day. All e the videos shared on Snapchat had more than 10 billion views per day by 2016. During that time Snapchat had more than 10 million active users in the United Kingdom alone. In 2017 it had more than 166 million users. Snapchat faced severe backlash from the users and other people when the company tried to announce a new update. This is because the update made the application very complicated. It was very hard for people to find send and re-watch snaps. To increase its video creation capabilities Snapchat acquired AI Factory this year in January. It had also announced that it will pay users who create viral content. 

Who owns Snapchat?

This is the part that all of you have been waiting for. As you already know Snapchat like many other companies is a public company. The company went public in 2017. So their many people who share of the company. Here you are going to learn about the top individual and institutional shareholders of the company. Let’s take a look at the individual stakeholders first. 

Bobby Murphy

Bobby Murphy who came up with the original idea of disappearing pictures owns most shares of the company as an individual. Murphy was the chief technology officer since the company was founded. Murphy owns nearly 88 million shares of Snapchat directly. Apart from that he also owns 5.86 million shares through a trust. The net worth of Bobby Murphy is 2.9 billion dollars.

Evan Spiegel

If you have heard any big names from Snapchat then you must have heard about Evan Spiegel. He made headlines when he turned down the offer of Mark Zuckerberg who wanted to acquire Snapchat for $3 billion dollars. The story Evan Spiegel is not a rags to riches one though. He was born into a wealthy family where his parents made great money. He is the one who represents Snapchat at public forums. Evan Spiegel personally owns 81 million shares of Snapchat and indirectly owns an additional 5.8 million shares through a trust. The net worth of Evan Spiegel is 1.6 billion dollars.

Imran Khan

Though he is not one of the original founders he owns more shares after Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. He is the one who is responsible for organizing the IPO of Alibaba in 2014. Imran Khan has served as the chief strategy officer of Snapchat till 2018. He owns 7.9 million shares of Snapchat.

Now that you have learned more about the individual stakeholders of Snapchat let’s look at the institutional shareholders of the company.

T.Rowe Price

This is a global investment management company. It is a firm that deals mainly with account management, retirement plans, and other services for individuals as well as institutions. It is a company that has more than 1.3 trillion in assets globally. T.Rowe Price owns 129,017,741 shares of Snapchat which nearly 10.45% of the company. 

Vanguard Group Inc

This is the one that always has a spot in almost all the “who owns” articles. Vanguard Group Inc is a mutual fund and ETF management company. It has top shares in many big companies like Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Disney, Apple, and many more. It has a total of 6.2 trillion in assets globally. Vanguard Group Inc owns 84,427,412 shares of Snapchat which is about 6.84% of the total shares. 

Edgewood Management LLC

Edgewood Management LLC is an investment advisor that is based in the United States. This company owns. 6.09% of the total shares which 75,244,676 shares of Snapchat.

Conclusion

These are the people and institutions who own Snapchat. Snapchat is becoming more and more popular among the millennial generation with each passing day. The main reason for it is the privacy it offers. All the photos you share on this platform can only be viewed for 24 hours of posting it after that the photos get deleted automatically. If anyone takes a screenshot of your photos then you will immediately get the notification on who did it. This is useful as you can hold people responsible if they misuse the photos. Learn more about Snapchat by reading the business model of Snapchat. You can also know about the ownership details of other companies on Postling. If you want to know who owns Apple then click here.

Ever wondered how banks make money? Okay, at least have you ever surprised how the world’s most valuable bank, JPMorgan makes money?

JPMorgan, an American investment bank and financial services holding company that operates across globally is the largest bank in the US. It is reported as the most valuable bank in the world by market capitalization. Most importantly is into everything that is involved in the financial sector such as consumer banking, commercial banking, investment banking, and asset management for individuals, institutions, corporations and governments. In fact, this is why JPMorgan is said to be a bulge bracket bank.

JPMorgan provides financial services to consumers, small businesses, large corporations, governments and other clients. However, the Corporate & Investment Bank segment is the largest source of net income for the company and is growing fast.

Okay, enough said! Let us quickly delve into how this world’s popular investment bank makes money. Let’s get into understanding its business model. So, shall we?

Want to know how Visa makes money? Read Visa Business Model here.

JPMorgan Business Model

As said, JPMorgan is a global leader in financial services and provides several services to both consumers and commercial firms. Thus the company performs a multitude of activities which are organized into four key segments.

1. Consumer & Community Banking (CCB)

2. Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB)

3. Asset & Wealth Management (AWM)

4. Commercial Banking (CB)

These four segments are its business segments, they describe the business model of the company. So, let’s quickly jump into that.

Consumer & Community Banking (CCB)

The Consumer & Community Banking segment of JPMorgan includes serving consumers and businesses with investment products, deposit, payment solutions, cash management, loans, credit card issuing, mortgage origination and servicing.

This segment posted $3.9 billion of net income in Q3 2020. The company posted $12.8 billion in revenue for the segment which was dropped by 8.6% compared to the Q3 held in the last year.

Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB)

JPMorgan’s Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) provides market-making, investment banking, prime brokerage, treasury, securities products, services to financial institutions, governments along with investors and corporations.

Simply, CIB is further divided into two subsegments.

1. Banking

There are numerous activities in the banking segment. Investment banking, lending, treasury services in all capital markets come under this. It also includes transaction services, cash management and liquidity solutions.

2. Markets & Investor Services

This includes equity markets, security services, fixed income markets, etc.

The net income for this Corporate & Investment Bank segment is $4.3 billion in Q3 2020 and accounts for over 42% of the company’s total net income.

Read: Square Business Model – How Square Makes Money?

Asset & Wealth Management (AWM)

JPMorgan has over $2.6 trillion of assets under asset & wealth management and it provides services for all asset classes. It also offers retirement products & services, brokerage and banking.

The segment consists of two subsegments.

1. Global Investment Management: It provides global investment services such as asset management, asset-liability management, pension analytics etc.

2. Global Wealth Management: It offers wealth management and investment advice such as capital markets, investment and risk management, banking, lending, tax planning and others.

The company makes about 9% of the total net income from the Asset & Wealth Management segment. It posted $877 million of net income in Q3 2020 which rose nearly 31%.

Read: Paypal Business Model – How PayPal Makes Money?

Commercial Banking (CB)

This segment offers corporations, financial institutions, municipalities investment banking and asset management products.

The segment is divided into four segments namely, Corporate Client Banking, Middle Market Banking, Commercial Term Lending, and Real Estate Banking.

The Commercial Banking segment posted $1.1 billion net income in Q3 2020 and the revenue for CB rose 0.5% to $2.3 billion.

Corporate

This segment comprises measuring, monitoring, reporting and managing the bank treasure, liquidity, foreign exchange risks and other crucial financial functions of the company.

All its activities are organized in two subsegments; Treasury and Chief Investment Office (CIO), Other Corporate units. Let’s see what functions come under these two segments.

Treasury & Chief Investment Office: This includes measuring, monitoring, reporting and managing funds, interest rate, and all other company’s liquidity.

Other Corporate Units: Real estate, enterprise technology, finance, legal, compliance, risk management, internal audit, corporate responsibility etc., come under this segment.

The corporate segment reported a loss of $699 in the net income in Q3 2020.

Read: How Credit Karma makes money? Credit Karma Business Model

How JPMorgan Makes Money?

As you can see there are multiple segments in JPMorgans’ functions that offer services to its different customer segments. The different customer segments range from individuals (with average to high net worth) to wholesale businesses (Institutional investors, business banking, middle market to multinationals worth more than $2B revenue).

Additionally, this biggest bank offers its services to nonprofits, communities, municipal entities and government.

JPMorgan posted a net income of $9.4 billion on revenue of $29.1 billion in Q3 2020, which ended September 30, 2020. In the same Q3 2020, it posted total non-GAAP revenue of $29.9 billion, nearly $0.8 billion more than GAAP revenue.

Though it is clear that the JPMorgan business model brings various ways for the company to make money, let us see how exactly it makes money.

Fees & commissions

JPMorgan charges certain fees and commissions for investment management, brokerage services, insurance etc. It also makes money from credit and debit card processing, deposits and lending and mortgage fees.

Investment banking fees

This includes advisory fees, equity and debt underwriting.

Net interest income

The revenue generated from loans or other interest-earning assets after deducting the interest expenses and other related expenses is the net interest income.

Principal transactions

The gains and losses in client-driven and market-making activities. It also includes all gains and losses related to risk management and hedge accounting activities.

Key Takeaway: JP Morgan makes a major part of its revenue from Consumer & Community Banking (CCB).

Let us see the net income of the company reported from each category in Q3 2020.

Net interest income – $13.1 billion

Consumer & Community Banking – $3,873 million

Corporate & Investment Bank – $4,0304 million

Commercial Banking – $1,088 million

Asset & Wealth Management – $877 million

Corporate – $699 (loss)

Bottom Line

As you have made it to the end, hope you have understood how the banking sector’s monster, JPMorgan operates and makes money. Several revenue streams make the company profitable. Despite its brilliant business model and its slight increase in revenue (its net income rose 4%) in Q3 2020, it has seen some losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the company expects a net interest income of $55 billion in the FY2020 which would make it successful in profits again.

Read: Venmo Business Model – How Venmo Makes Money?

A few decades ago no one thought that people would own personal computers. Because they were so costly and only businesses would use them. Moreover, no one knew if the general public needed them. If you look back a decade ago you will notice that your phones were not even close to what they are today. There were only limited functions that you could do using your cell phones. But today you can literally do anything that you can do using a computer. You can access the internet through it and get any type of information or services you need. If someone said that all of this was possible a decade ago you would not have believed it. However, today you can download all types of applications using your smartphone. Not only that you can watch movies and more importantly listen to music online. All of this is possible because one company is Apple. 

This is a company that does not need any introduction. It is the richest company in the world. Apple has more liquid cash than the US government. Just by reading that you can understand how successful the company is today. Almost everyone wants to own an Apple device once in their lifetime. Apple has risen above the rest of the companies in terms of brand recognition. Today Apple products are not like other similar products they are considered to be a status symbol. The most important reason for Apple’s success is constant innovation. Right from the beginning, the company was pushing the boundaries of innovation and creativity. The man behind all of this is none other than Steve Jobs. This one name that people cannot separate from Apple. His contribution to the company’s success is enormous. For years people thought that he owned the company which is not true. Now that is gone people might wonder who exactly owns it. This article will tell you everything about that. 

But before that let’s look at how it all started. 

History of Apple

The multinational tech company which has lots of money today had humble beginnings. Many people who have learned a little bit of Apple’s origin know that it all started in a garage. The company was founded by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Wozniak in 1976.  Steve got the idea of making computers when he learned that Wozniak was good at building them. When they decided to make their first product they didn’t have enough money. So both Wozniak and Jobs have to sell some of their belongings to finance their project. Wozniak built their first Apple product Apple I which is a computer. They managed to build them for nearly $250 and sold them for $666.66. After that, the company became Apple computer Inc. Ronald Wayne was not part of the company as he already sold his shares to Steve Jobs. This is when things started to get serious. 

After their initial success, Apple created Apple II which was different from Apple I as it open architecture and cell-based color graphics. By the 1980s Apple had a bunch of computer engineers and their own production line. Steve Jobs said that all the computers in the future would run on a graphical user interface and wanted Apple Lisa to have it. Steve Jobs also used this in the project managed by Wozniak that is Macintosh. Macintosh is the first-ever personal computer sold to the public. It failed to succeed as the price was which is opposite of what they originally intended. Due to this, they had to bear losses and the board wanted to limit Steve’s abilities. When Steve tried to remove John Sculley it backfired and instead, he was removed from the company he started. Wozniak also quit Apple in 1985 but represented the company at events for an annual stipend. 

This is when Apple began to fall. It has ventured into various things. They wanted to sell cameras, TVs, speakers, video consoles, and others. It also lost a lawsuit against the Microsoft company in Apple claimed that Microsoft stole their idea. During this time John Sculley was replaced by Michael Spindler who was later replaced by Gil Amelio. While all of this was happening Steve founded another company called NeXT. Apple purchased NeXt due to which brought Steve Jobs back into Apple. Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy when Jobs returned to the company. iMac was the first successful product that was launched by the company after Steve’s return. They acquired SoundJam and remained it as iTunes in 2000. iPod was Apple’s answer to Walkman. That single device could hold thousands of songs which is a revolution. Apple release iPads using which you could download apps and use them. Then it ventured into smartphones and you know the rest of the story.

Who owns Apple?

Apple went public in 1980. So there are more people who own the shares of the company but let’s take a look at the top individual and institutional shareholders. Let’s start with the individual stakeholders.

Arthur Levinson 

He is the current chairman of the company and he is also CEO of Calico. Arthur also worked as a chairman for the biotech company Genetech Inc. He owns 0.03% of the company which is nearly 1.13 million shares. 

Tim Cook

If you know anything about Apple other than its products then you probably know that Tim Cook is the current CEO of the company. He took over as the CEO of the company after Steve Jobs passed away. He owns 0.02% of the total shares which is nearly 847,000 shares. 

Al Gore 

He is the individual that holds more stake after Arthur and Tim. AI Gore is the founder of the Climate Reality Project. He was the 45th vice President of the united states. He owns more than 113,000 shares which are not even 0.01% of the company.

Now let’s look at institutional shareholders. 

BlackRock Inc

This is a mutual fund and ETF management company that owns the most shares of the company. It has a total of $6.4 trillion in global assets. It is a company that owns many of the top companies in the world. It owns 247 million shares which are about 6.3% of the total shares of the company. 

Vanguard Group Inc

This is another company that has a major company that has a major share in almost all the companies that BlackRock Inc has shares in. It is also a mutual fund and ETF management company that has $6.2 trillion in global assets. Vanguard owns 7.8% of Apple which is about 7.8% of the company. 

Berkshire Hathaway Inc

This is the company that was founded by the famous billionaire Warren Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway owns 245 million shares of Apple which are about 5.7% of the company.

Conclusion

These are the people and institutions who own Apple. Apple has changed the world forever. Without it, you cannot imagine how the world would be today. Another big contribution of Apple was to the music industry. When Napster burst into the picture it made file sharing easier than ever. People could just download music for free without buying the album. Steve Jobs proposed the idea of selling music through iTunes so that the music industry could make a profit. You wouldn’t be able to listen to your favorite artists if it wasn’t for Apple. There is more to this company than you know. To know more about it you can read the business model of Apple. You can also know about other people or institutions who own these companies. For example, you can click here to know who owns Twitter.

It’s no wonder digital payments have been contributing a lot to the success of today’s businesses. With the drastic change in customer’s behavior and their demand for convenience and comfort everywhere they go, the digital payments trend is gaining huge momentum.

However, adopting technology is not that easy for small businesses as it requires extensive training, expert staff, hardware and software expenses. This is exactly why Square came into the picture. It has shed light on easy ways to integrate digital payments and other digitization techniques. The best part is it offers brilliant online payments and business solutions for affordable prices for everyone and free often.

After all, Square was born to make running a business easy for everyone no matter the size and their goals.

Wondering what Square is and how does it make money? Well, let’s discuss that in this article analyzing its business model. So, shall we?

What is Square?

If you are unaware of what Square is, this is for you.

Square is one of the best Point of Sale and business solutions providers founded in February 2009 in St. Louis, Missouri. Square, Inc. (SQ) is now headquartered in San Francisco, California, US. The company was founded as an American financial service, mobile payment and merchant services provider by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and his friend Jim McKelvey.

Someone truly said necessity is the mother of invention. The founders started the company when Jim was unable to complete the sale because he couldn’t accept a credit card. They invented their first product called Square Reader that accepts credit card payments. However, they didn’t stop there. They introduced multiple products and services as well for helping entrepreneurs to run their businesses with the aid of technology.

Thus, the company has created a great impact on small, medium and large businesses in adopting digital technology in their businesses. 

Read: How Shopify makes money – Shopify Business Model

Who are its Customers?

Bigger markets and bigger businesses are key challenges for small businesses. But the game has changed with the evolution of technology. However, those who adopted only survived and are still surviving.

As Square targets these numerous small businesses, the company has become so successful while also helping its customers grow.

It offers software, hardware and outstanding POS related services to boost the growth of businesses. Over 2 million businesses are using Square for online payment transactions, business analytics, and digitization.

Of course, many companies fueled the benefits of online payments and contact less payments. But Square sits at the top of the list of best POS service and business solution providers. Not to mention, that is why people are curious about how the company makes money and its revenue. So, without any further ado, let’s get into that. However, before diving right into Square’s business model, you need to know its products and services to better understand its income strategies.

Square’s Products & Services

Having said that Square has launched a multitude of products and services for helping entrepreneurs sell online, manage money, attract customers, manage and pay teams, and extend and develop business. It helps all types of businesses namely, retail, food and beverages, professional services, and enterprises. So, in short, its products and services are organized into three categories.

1. Payments & POS

2. Finances & Team Management

3. Marketing

Square Payments & POS

As Square’s mission is to help every business irrespective of its size to thrive in the economy, it has launched a varied range of payments & POS services and products. Okay, enough said! Let’s see what those are.

Square Readers – So as said already, Square Reader is the first Point of Sale (POS) product created by the company. Square Reader is used to accepting credit card payments by connecting it to the mobile device’s audio jack. All the Square Readers work with the Square Register mobile application.

Square Stand – This turns an iPad device into a POS terminal. It is integrated with a magnetic stripe reader and connects to Square Reader for NFC (Near Field Communication), EMV chip cards, barcode scanners etc.

Square Magstripe Reader – This Square Magstripe Reader accepts payments when it is plugged into the mobile device’s headset jack. So, on swiping cards, payment is enabled.

Square Reader for EMV chip cards & NFC – These let sellers receive the payments by swiping or dipping the cards and EMV chips. Also, the Readers for NFC enable contactless payments via mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, PayPal etc.

Square Register App – It is used to accept payments even if there is no connection. Sellers can send receipts, reports, track inventory, adjust discounts, tips, taxes and collect customer feedback. The app is used for a wide range of activities such as to help sellers accept cash, checks, gift cards along with debit and credit cards.

Team Management – Square helps business owners manage their teams smoothly offering advanced features. These services include managing multiple stores from a single account, view sale reports and employee time cards.

Square Analytics – Sellers can view and understand how their business is performing with the help of Square Analytics right from the Square dashboard.

Square Invoices – This helps sellers to create instant custom digital invoices and receive payments securely.

E-Gift Cards – It lets sellers offer gift cards, allows buyers to redeem them and track them.

Online Store & App Marketplace – Square helps entrepreneurs launch online stores with advanced website features with the help of BigCommerce, Weebly and other companies.

It also has an app marketplace that helps sellers choose third-party apps integrations for their business to run efficiently.

Square Appointments – This is an appointment scheduling software that enables sellers to schedule appointments, manage calendars, and view their clients’ and customer’s visiting history.

Square Cash App – This is the most popular app to send and receive electronic payments fast and easy. In fact, Square makes most of its revenue from this app. In Q3 2020, it generated about $1.6 billion in bitcoin revenue. Both businesses and individuals can sign up and use the Square Cash app.

Square Financial Services

As mentioned above, Square operates to help every business to flourish with profits, it constantly comes up with outstanding financial services. It offers business debit cards, enables invoices, online checkout links, virtual terminal, business loans, bank transfers for sellers to help their businesses adapt to new technology trends and grow. 

So Square Financial services include Payroll, Employee Benefits, and Square Capital.

Square Capital – Square helps business owners with funds in the form of instant loans for expanding their business, buying equipment, increasing inventory etc.

Sellers will have to agree to pay back a fixed percentage of daily card sales in return.

Employee Benefits – The company supports business owners in making their employees happy by offering amazing employee benefits. It offers health insurance, 401(k), bonus, pre-tax benefits etc. without putting extra weight on the company.

Square Payroll – Like employee benefits, Square Payroll helps sellers to make the payments to staff easy. The Square Register tracks employee’s working hours and calculates the wages. Zero burdens on sellers, so that they can fully focus on improving the business.

Square Marketing Services

Square Customer Engagement – Customer engagement is a crucial part of the business as good engagement keeps the customers and drives them to come back again and again. Hence, Square has come up with amazing customer engagement services such as email marketing, and social media marketing.

Read: Instagram Business Model – How Instagram Makes Money

Also, as the best customer experience is the key to better customer engagement, the products such as Square invoice, Square Register are designed to provide a great customer experience. Hence, customers naturally start engaging with the business and its products with these apps. Thus the tools act as brilliant marketing solutions.

Square marketing costs from $15 to $35 per month for 500 to 2000 customer contacts.

Loyalty Program – Square enables its sellers to attract customers and grow their count with loyalty programs. The best part is all the services the company offers can be done right from POS or Square’s online website.

The pricing for this loyalty program is around $45/month to $105/month per location. The costs vary based on the number of loyalty visits.

So, these are the key products and services of Square. Most of the offerings cost low to an average amount whereas some of the products are available for free. So, the business model is almost revealed in this section. The only thing that is left is how much this giant online payments and business solution provider makes, right? Okay, however, let’s also see how exactly it makes money and its expenses along with it.

Square Business Model

You must be wondering how much Square bags with a multitude of products and services. It made about $4.71 billion annual net revenue in 2019. It posted $36.5 million net income in Q3 2020 and the gross profit rose 58.9% to $794.5 million. Also, it is reported recently that Square stocks are overpriced.

The company receives payment and small fees in exchange for its offerings. This is how Square makes money.

How Square Makes Money?

Payment Processing Fees

As online payments service is the core business of the company, square receives major revenue from transaction fees. It charges a certain fee of 2.75% of the total transaction value for all types of payment processes (card-present and invoices). It charges 3.5% of the total transaction and an extra $0.15 per transaction for contactless payments.

Software & Other Services

Square bills a monthly bill for using its software and other services such as Square invoices, Square Register, payroll, marketing, Square Appointments, Square Customer Engagement etc.

Square Capital

As said in the above section, Square demands a fixed percentage from daily sales as an exchange for providing instant funds.

Hardware Revenue

Square also earns a notable income from selling its hardware like Register, Terminal, Reader, Stand for chip and contactless etc.

Acquisitions

Square acquired multiple companies such as Weebly (for $365M), LocBox, Stitch Labs, Verse, Dessa and a few others. Though the acquisition amount and the profits from all its acquisitions are not disclosed, it’s assumed that it makes a great revenue from its companies.

Square has recently announced its partnership with on-demand online delivery company, Postmates. Square’s customers (sellers) can now dispatch couriers right from their POS with the help of Postmates.

Costs & Expenses

As you can see Square has a handful of ways to make revenue, it also has to bear costs and expenses. Let us quickly see what are the expenses posed on Square.

• Operating Costs – Salaries, sales, marketing and advertising, advance losses, customer assets, development costs etc.
• Transaction Costs – The company has to pay interchangeable costs and transaction fees to bank settlements, card-issuing financial institutions and third-party processors.
• Hardware & Technology Costs – It has bear costs of Readers, Stands, devices, manufacturing, packaging, and fulfillment costs. In the same way, it has to invest in software and technology to provide better service to its customers.

Bottom Line

As you have made it to the end, hope you have understood how Square makes money and its revenue model. The company holds a huge business as it has a wide range of products and services. Hence, though it bears heavy costs and expenses, it can make great profits. Moreover, its target market is so powerful that it created scope to both boost its customer’s business and its own business, which is a more compelling business strategy.

Can you imagine a world without social media platforms? You can’t right? It is impossible to know how our world would look like now if social media platforms did not exist. Many people who are reading this right now would have been born after these social media platforms came into the world. Probably all of you have accounts on social media platforms. Different people like to use different social media platforms. They choose the one that suits them. Some people have accounts on multiple social media platforms. When social media platforms first came into the scene they were seen as platforms that were only meant for the younger generation. But this is clearly not the case today. In the current generation, everybody is on social platforms. It can be kids, teenagers, young people, middle-aged people, and even some senior citizens everybody seems to be using social media platforms.

Not only that but even businesses, brands, celebrities, and many other organizations have been using social media platforms. The usage of social media platforms has drastically increased over the past decade all over the world. It doesn’t matter which country you are in you can always find people who are glued to their smartphones scrolling through some newsfeed. Social media platforms have become an essential part of people’s lives in the modern world. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat are some of the most famous social media platforms. Twitter is quite different from other social media platforms if you have observed. All you can is write a short tweet, post a photo, or video. But it has managed to become one of the most popular and successful social media platforms. But not many people don’t know who owns Twitter. This article is completely about that. But first, let’s see how it all started. 

History of Twitter

You all know Twitter as this microblogging social media platform but it is quite different from what people defined intended it to be initially. Before Twitter, its founding members were part of a podcasting company called Odeo. Jack Dorsey who is the co-founder and current CEO of the company proposed this idea where someone could communicate with a group of people using SMSs. The initial name of the platform was twttr because the domain name Twitter.com was already being used by others. The company managed to buy the domain six months after it was launched. It all started after the initial prototype was developed by Jack Dorsey and Florian Weber. Jack Dorsey made the first tweet. He also stated that the name of the company was perfect as it meant chirps of birds or a short burst of information. Initially, it was used by employees of Odeo as an internal communication service. 

After this Dorsey along with some other people from Odeo acquired. Due to this acquisition, they got Odeo and Twitter. In 2007 Twitter became its own company. Twitter became popular when the South by Southwest conference was held in 2007. All of the people who were participating in the conference were tweeting about the conference. To make sure that everyone notices the tweets Twitter placed big plasma TVs in the hallways so that people could see every tweet made by the speakers, panelists, and whoever participated in it. Apart from that each person who spoke at the conference talked about Twitter and how great it was. Twitter also won the Web Award of that conference. The other thing that also boosted its popularity was when an astronaut of NASA T.J Creamer tweeted from space. Today more than people make nearly half a million tweets every day.

Who owns Twitter?

This is the part all of us have been waiting for. Just like other big companies Twitter is also a public company so its shares are owned by individual people and institutions. First, let’s take a look at the individual stakeholders.

Evan Williams

Out of all the co-founders Evan Williams owns the most shares of the company. This may come as a surprise to many people because most people who know about Twitter think that Jack Dorsey owns most shares as he is the CEO. But this is not at all true. Evan Williams owns 57 million shares of Twitter. This nearly 12% of the company. According to sources, his net worth is $1.4 billion. 

Jack Dorsey

Right after Evan Williams comes Jack Dorsey who you already know as the current CEO of Twitter. Jack owns 22 million shares of Twitter which is about 4.7% of the company. This may not look like much compared to Evan Williams but it is actually a lot if you look at the company’s net worth. 

Now that you know about the company’s individual shareholders let’s look at the top institutional shareholders.

Vanguard Group Inc

This is one company that seems to own major shares in almost all the top companies in the world. It has shares in companies like Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Disney, and many others. Vanguard Group Inc is a mutual fund and ETF management company. The company has $6.2 trillion in assets globally. It owns 10% of Twitter’s total shares. 

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley is the company that holds the most number of shares after Vanguard Group Inc. It is a wealth management company that has nearly $2 trillion in assets globally. Morgan Stanley owns 5.7% of the total shares of Twitter. 

BlackRock Inc

This is another company that owns major shares in top companies in the world. It has shares in almost all the companies that Vanguard Group Inc has shares in. Just like Vanguard, it is also a mutual fund and ETF management company. It owns nearly 4.7% of the total shares of Twitter. 

Conclusion

These are the people and institutions that own Twitter. Twitter has become a tool through which people can know about the global discourse. It has given people a platform to express what they feel. Twitter has managed to make the playing field even by giving people a platform to counter popular beliefs, ideas, and opinions. You can retweet someone else’s tweet if you like or didn’t like what they said irrespective of their social status or political influence. It has become a platform where people can discuss and debate all kinds of topics. People can use this platform to spread awareness about all sorts of topics. By looking at the popularity it has gained it is easy to say that it is not going to fade away anytime soon. To know how it became a successful look at the business model of Twitter. You can also check out other articles that will tell you who owns which popular company. For instance, you can click here to know who owns Amazon.