Snapchat parent Snap Inc's India unit saw its revenues and profits surge in the financial year 2024 (FY24) as the social media company expanded operations in one of its largest user markets.
The company's revenue from operations stood at Rs 101.4 crore for FY24, registering a 28.6 percent year-on-year (YoY) increase from Rs 78.8 crore in FY23, as per its latest filing with the Registrar of Companies, shared by business intelligence platform Tofler.
Meanwhile, net profit grew by 26.6 percent to Rs 9.8 crore for the financial year, from Rs 7.7 crore in the previous financial year.
It's worth noting that these revenue numbers don't represent the sales revenues of the company, but rather the revenue generated from providing software technology and related services to the firm's affiliate entity Snap Group Limited.
The India entity is engaged in developing, designing, selling and marketing of Snap's communication software meant for video and voice communication as well as providing consulting and promotional services to the affiliate entity.
In terms of expenses, Snap saw its employee benefit expense increase by 8.2 percent YoY to Rs 42.5 crore in FY24 from Rs 39.3 crore in FY23. This includes a 3.6 percent jump in salaries and bonuses to Rs 32.3 crore in FY24 from Rs 31.2 crore in FY23 and a 27.9 percent increase in employee stock compensation expense to Rs 6.99 crore in FY24.
Advertising promotional expenses also grew by 37.2 percent YoY to Rs 14.9 crore in FY24 from Rs 10.8 crore in FY23.
Snap's India expansion
India, which has one of the world's youngest populations, is a key market for the future growth of Snapchat which already has over 200 million users in the country. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has previously said that they are making use of learnings from the company's expansion efforts in the country to drive community growth in new geographies.
Snap is also investing significant efforts in building a thriving developer ecosystem in India since the country has one of the largest pools of AR developers.
Snap co-founder Bobby Murphy stated last month that India accounts for the highest number of augmented reality (AR) lenses on Snapchat, and its AR developer community has expanded by more than 50% in the past two years.
He also said that India is the second-largest market for its AR developer community, but didn't disclose any specific figures.
The social media firm has also rolled out a range of initiatives to reach a larger segment of AR developers, particularly in Tier 2 and 3 cities. It is conducting Lens Studio training meet-ups in cities like Surat, Coimbatore, Rajkot, Trichy, Trivandrum and Gwalior. Snap claims it has hosted over 120 such meetups in 2024, reaching over 6,000 AR Developers.
In addition, the company is building up its developer network, Snap Lens Network, where the firm selects a few Snap developers to mentor them and work closely with them on several activities.
These efforts are part of the social media firm's monetisation push in the country, as it looks to woo more brands to create AR-driven experiences to engage with Gen-Z consumers and boost product sales.
Among the brands that Snap has worked with are Myntra, Doritos - Pepsi Co., Disney+ Hotstar (now JioHotstar), Spotify, and Surf Excel .
Earlier today, the ephemeral messaging app launched Sponsored Snaps in India, which enables brands to send sponsored messages in users' chat inboxes. These messages will appear as unread in the app's main Chat tab, above the user's personal chat threads.
The sponsored Snaps will be visually distinct from other Snaps in the inbox and users won't be notified of these messages through a push notification. If the messages are left unviewed, they will be removed from the inbox, the company said.
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