By Jaspreet Singh and Aditya Soni
June 16 (Reuters) – Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told Reuters the company’s new Specs augmented-reality glasses are part of its long-term strategy, pushing back on activist investor demands to shut down or spin off the cash-burning unit behind the device.
The Snapchat parent launched the device, its first consumer AR glasses, on Tuesday at a price of $2,195 and pitched them as the future of how people interact with technology in the AI age.
The launch comes months after Irenic Capital Management pushed Snap to consider options for Specs as part of a series of changes that the activist investor said could boost the social media company’s worth by at least five times.
Irenic has argued Specs should be funded on its own, noting Snap has already spent more than $3.5 billion on the unit.
“While investors may want more short-term profitability, our job at Snap is to drive long-term profitability and the long-term success of the company,” Spiegel said in an interview.
“One of the things we’ve always been clear about as we’ve built Snap… was that we were committed to our long-term vision. And that includes staying independent rather than selling the company,” he said.
Spiegel said the company is expected to share “more later this year in terms of how we’re thinking about partnerships over a longer period of time.”
The company carved out the unit as a standalone subsidiary in January, a structure that could let it raise outside funding.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)