“A lot of start-ups are thinking if they build a product, they’ll be able to go global, but that’s just not the case anymore,” said Tim Chae, a partner at 500 Startups, who heads a venture capital fund focused on Korean start-ups.

Snapchat did not respond to requests for comment. Snapchat does not list any Asian offices on its website but is advertising for freelancers working remotely to help it develop local-language versions in South Korea and Japan as part of a “language ambassador program.”

Image Snow offers photo filters tailored to the Asian market, and a significant part of the app’s roughly 30 million downloads have been from Asia since its September introduction.

Mr. Han, the spokesman for Snow, acknowledged it was similar to Snapchat, but said Snow had unique features like video chat. Like Snapchat, its primary user demographic is teenagers and young adults.

East Asian countries have provided a ready market for new social networks centered on video, selfies, animations and entertainment. The new social networks are largely used on smartphones — a transition that established social networks like Facebook are trying to make. Japan has Line, which like Snow is owned by Naver. China has WeChat, a messaging and social media app that has become nearly ubiquitous on Chinese smartphones.

Ivy Zhou, another Chinese Snow user, attends university in Hong Kong, which does not have China’s internet censorship and where she is free to use Snapchat. Snapchat’s social network is far more vibrant than Snow’s, she said, but in China, Snow could fill a fun niche.