India has emerged as Instagram's crucial market, says CEO Adam Mosseri

Vice President of Product Management at Facebook Adam Mosseri. (PC-AFP)

Over the last year or two, India has emerged as one of Instagram's most important markets worldwide, the photo-sharing platform's CEO Adam Mosseri said at the Facebook Fuel for India 2020 event on December 15.

"We have spent a lot more time trying to make sure our Android app is at parity with our iOS app. Obviously, Android is very prevalent in India. We have seen an amazing amount of energy and creativity from the Indian creator ecosystem," LiveMint quoted Mosseri as saying.

Speaking on the platform's growth, new feature launches and content monetisation strategy, Mosseri said they have launched a 15-second short video feature called 'Reels'. This was launched after the Indian government banned Chinese video app TikTok. Apart from this, the Instagram head said its platform launched other updates, including live rooms, lifestyle and shopping.

Instagram is getting ready to monetise content on its platform; however, it has been helping content creators make a living through brand partnerships.

"The world is changing quickly and if we don't adapt, we run the risk of becoming irrelevant. The group we focus the most are creators but we also care about small, big businesses and retailers. We are an important part of their (content creators') business. We take that responsibility very seriously," the business daily quoted Mosseri as saying.

On the issue of leveraging their platform to make money, the Instagram CEO said, "There is no one solution that works for everybody. We hope to create a whole set of tools so that depending on what kind of business you have, you can leverage us."

Mosseri maintained that his platform is addressing the concerns of harassment and bullying on social media platforms. The photo-sharing platform has enabled a new feature called 'Restrict', which allows users to approve or review comments from people.

Apart from this, Instagram added the 'Shadowban' feature which helps it take down content by users violating its community guidelines focusing on safety, nudity and violence.