Our Canva SWOT analysis highlights the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats the world's fifth-most valuable startup faces.
How many of you have used online software to create your CVs, presentations, social media posts, cards, videos, and other graphical art? I am sure all of you must have been to different websites to create some sort of visual art.
What is that one online platform where you can exercise creativity and create your desired product? Did you say Canva? That's what I thought! Canva is one of the most used online graphic design platforms that allows users to convert their imagination into reality.
Canva caters to the needs of its users irrespective of the sort of product they require. This is why this digital designing platform is used by students for academic-related work, professionals making eye-catching presentations, and businesses for social media marketing.
Those who have not used Canva yet might be thinking about how much would it cost to use this amazing graphic designing platform but guess what? I have some good news for you.
You can use Canva for free! Yes, you read that correctly. Many tools, templates, and features on Canva that are used by millions of users are free. However, some advanced tools can only be accessed if you have a paid subscription to Canva.
You might be thinking that why am I telling you all this? Since we will conduct a Canva SWOT analysis in this article, you need to know what Canva is. Although I have given you a brief idea about the platform, to get an idea about Canva in detail, let's look at its history and current operations.
The roots of Canva can be traced back to 2012 when Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht founded Canva. Since Canva is an online graphic designing platform, soon, an ex-Google employee who was a tech expert joined Melanie and Cliff.
Initially, $3 million was raised through seed funding to fund the Australian-based company, and finally, the company was launched in 2013. The concept of Canva was new to people. It helped many online people who used to wander from one website to another to perform something related to digital design.
In the first month of its launch, 50,000 users signed up to Canva, and by 2014, almost 600,00 users were done creating 3.5 million designs on the platform. The same year, Canva's first office was established outside Sydney, in Manila. Soon another office began to be built in mainland China.
As the years went by, Canva started offering more features to attract users, and the platform's user base kept increasing. Finally, in 2017, Canva declared that it had generated revenue of $25.1 million, out of which it made a profit of $1.8 million.
Right after Canva started making profits regularly, the company decided to do something good for society. So, in 2019, the company launched Canva for education, a free platform for primary and secondary teachers and their students to use for educational purposes. The objective of this platform was to facilitate collaboration between teachers and students.
Canva is currently booming as more than 100 million people use Canva in a month in more than 190 countries. You will be shocked that more than 80 designs are created on Canva every second. Now, imagine how many designs are made in one day.
In 2021, Canva was valued to be worth $40 billion. It means it is the world's fifth-most valuable startup. Since Canva provides online services, it doesn't require a large workforce. The graphic designing platform employs a workforce of 2,500 people.
Now that you are completely aware of what Canva is and how it was formed, it's time to discuss what SWOT analysis is. A SWOT analysis is a tool businesses use to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats organizations face.
A SWOT template helps highlight the external and internal factors that impact the operations of organizations. Till now, we have made you aware of the purpose of a SWOT analysis, so let's advance to the next step and carry out a Canva SWOT analysis.
Strengths of Canva
Strengths always help businesses grow since they give them a competitive advantage over competitors. Therefore, every business wants to increase its strengths to compete in the market. The first section of the SWOT analysis identifies some of the strengths that Canva possesses.
Huge Number of Users
Online platforms try to increase their users through different means since they help a platform generate revenue. Although Canva is a newbie in the industry, it has a large user base.
Canva initially attracted a large number of users due to the services it offers. Moreover, as time went by, Canva added more features to attract new customers, due to which the customer base of Canva kept increasing.
Currently, more than 100 million people use Canva in a month. Such a huge customer base helps the graphic designing platform to earn huge revenue.
Offers Multiple Features
There are millions of online graphic design platforms available. However, one thing that provides a competitive advantage to Canva is its ability to provide multiple features. Canva is not just a platform for designing CVs or presentations. Instead, it provides a whole bunch of templates that enable you to create anything.
Recently, Canva has also added a video editing feature that allows you to edit videos. This feature is attracting video editors, and as a result, the number of users of Canva is increasing.
Fast-Growing Company
Millions of startups are launched every year. Some of them fail in the start, while others take time to grow. Canva is one of the companies that grew enormously with time. Even in the first month after the company was launched, it attracted 50,000 users.
Moreover, Canva started making significant profits right after five years of launch. In 2021, the company was valued at $40 billion, making it the fifth fastest-growing startup.
Weaknesses of Canva
Every company has some weaknesses along with their strengths. However, companies should get rid of the weaknesses since they hold them back from achieving growth. Canva looks pretty stable currently. However, the company does possess some weaknesses.
Limited Free Designs
Canva offers several free designs that provide a basis for what users want to create. However, not all designs offered by Canva are free. To access most of the designs, users have to pay since the number of designs that are for free is less.
This acts as a limit for the users since they can't use the platform to its fullest to create their desired products.
Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property is considered intangible property of an individual who includes his creative ideas. For example, people use Canva to create logos, watermarks, and other personal stuff. However, the intellectual property rights of Canva clearly state that Canva owns everything created through Canva.
This point of Canva's terms and conditions backfires since many people are unwilling to surrender their own product ownership. As a result, many users avoid using Canva. Hence, Canva loses many potential users.
Alignment Issues
Canva claims that the platform can be used for designers. However, that's not exactly the case. Designers pay attention to small details. As a result, the tools they use should be completely accurate.
Canva is reported to have alignment issues. Designers claim that the lilac lines that appear while adjusting the object's position are inaccurate, and it takes a lot of time and energy to align the objects. This is a drawback of using Canva, due to which many designers avoid using it.
Opportunities For Canva
Opportunities are the chances that organizations get to attain success. Every organization gets the opportunity to grow big. However, some are able to seize the opportunities timely. Let's look at what opportunities Canva has.
Increasing Internet Users
As technological developments are taking place, the number of internet users is increasing daily. Currently, more than 5 billion people are using the internet. This number is predicted to increase in the future.
As the number of internet users increases with time, there is a possibility that the demand for Canva will also increase. Therefore, Canva can offer attractive plans and features to attract more users in the coming days so the company can grow further.
Fixing The Alignment Issues & Introduction of Advanced Features
Businesses that learn from their mistakes always turn out to be successful. Canva is a very useful tool for amateurs. However, many designers avoid using Canva due to its alignment issues and lack of advanced features.
Canva can attract designers by fixing the alignment problem and introducing advanced features that can help designers in professional designing. This will increase the customer base of Canva and improve its reputation.
Social Media & Digital Marketing
As social media users have increased significantly over the years, businesses have started using social media platforms to advertise their products. Canva can also market its platform through social media platforms and other high-traffic websites.
Suppose Canva forms a good social media and digital marketing strategy. In that case, it can attract a lot of traffic, increasing the company's revenue.
Threats Faced by Canva
Threats are the worries businesses feel from the external environment. Different organizations face different types of threats. In this section, we will discuss some of the threats that Canva faces externally.
Data Breach
Recently many big tech companies experienced data breaches, after which users are very conscious of sharing their information on online platforms. Canva has also been a subject of a data breach in the past.
In 2019, Canva experienced a data breach where a hacker hacked the data of 139 million users of Canva. This adversely impacted the reputation of Canva, making its users of Canva feel unsafe. However, Canva fears that another data breach would impact its operations negatively and may cause a loss in its user base.
High Competition
What's the most interesting thing about the internet? It provides every user an equal opportunity to compete with billion companies in the online market. Although Canva is a very famous graphic designing platform at the moment, it doesn't mean it is the only platform offering digital designing tools.
There are multiple online platforms present that offer similar features as Canva. Moreover, since there are no barriers to entry on the internet, any online platform can easily emerge and snatch the market share of Canva.
Russia-Ukraine War
The war between Russia and Ukraine has impacted many businesses adversely. Canva is one of the companies whose business is also negatively impacted by this war. Russia is a vast market. However, after the conflict started, Canva blocked all payments in Russia.
The graphic designing platform stopped offering paid products in Russia in solidarity with Ukraine. This has caused a reduction in the subscribers of Canva that lead to financial losses. Canva will continue to face losses until the war stops.
Canva SWOT Analysis: Final Word
Canva is one of the most used online graphic designing platforms. Canva is widely used by all sorts of users since it is very easy to use and provides several features and templates for free.
Canva is also considered one of the world's fastest-growing startups. Ever since it was launched, it has been growing rapidly. Since Canva is used by more than 100 million users every month, we decided to conduct a Canva SWOT analysis.
However, before proceeding further towards the SWOT analysis, we first discussed how to conduct a SWOT analysis and what its significance is. Then we conducted a Canva SWOT analysis to see the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
The SWOT analysis results are conveyed in the form of an essay. However, these results can also be represented through a SWOT Matrix. If you like this business technique, you can look at more examples of SWOT analysis.
