Snapchat surpasses 250 million monthly active users in India

India key to Snapchat growth

India, home to one of the world's youngest populations, has been a key growth market for Snapchat in recent years and remains crucial to its future expansion.

Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapchat parent Snap Inc, 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 stated that nearly 80 percent of Indian Snapchat users interact with Lenses daily, driving over 80 billion total interactions, an indication of the growing AR adoption among consumers in the country.

Snapchat Lenses are AR effects that users can apply to their photos and videos within the app.

"Snapchat India is strategically poised to capitalise on this growing opportunity by bringing culturally relevant experiences to Indian audiences through local content initiatives, partnerships, and maintaining a dedicated focus on regional creators through Spotlight and Stories," the company said in a statement.

Read: Snapchat parent's India unit sees 28.6% revenue surge to Rs 101 crore in FY24

India AR developer push

Snap is also making significant investments in building a thriving developer ecosystem in India, which houses one of the largest pools of AR developers.

Earlier this year, Snap CTO Bobby Murphy noted that India accounts for the highest number of AR lenses on Snapchat, and its AR developer community has expanded by more than 50 percent 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.

Over the past year, the social media firm has 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, Snap 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 company'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., JioHotstar, Spotify, and Surf Excel.

Snap is also ramping up its advertising business in India by expanding its local sales team, aiming to compete with rivals like Google and Meta, which currently dominate the country’s digital advertising market.

In March, Snapchat launched Sponsored Snaps in India, enabling 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.

"Snap’s vision in India is to build a sustainable business by growing and nurturing its community, strengthening trust with advertisers by delivering business value, supporting vibrant storytelling via Spotlight and Stories, and fostering a thriving AR developer ecosystem," the company said in a statement.