Snapchat touches 100 mn user mark in India, aims to further strengthen localised experiences

Photo-messaging app Snapchat on Wednesday said its monthly user base has reached 100 million in the country, and the company will continue to anchor its efforts towards growing and providing more resources to its community of Indian creators. Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat, virtually hosted the second edition of 'Snap in India'. At the event, Snap co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel announced the milestone of reaching 100 million Snapchatters monthly in India.

"We have made significant investments to localise the Snapchat experience for the Indian community. We have added culturally relevant content, developed highly active and creative local creator communities, and invested in local products, marketing initiatives, and language support, he added. Spiegel noted that these efforts to bring a localised experience to Indian Snapchatters has helped the company to reach the milestone and that the company will "continue to anchor our efforts around celebrating local culture and talent, while empowering, growing, and providing resources for our community of Indian creators".

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Snapchat's app allows users to share photos with friends, and offers filters and lenses that are augmented reality-enabled. Snap has also been partnering with a number of brands in the country. The company has announced a strategic partnership with homegrown e-commerce marketplace, Flipkart to develop innovative AR experiences for e-commerce.

This will be an India-first e-commerce partnership for Snap, and Snap's Camera Kit will be an integral part of Flipkart's 'Camera Storefront'. Through this partnership, shoppers will be able to begin their shopping and e-commerce engagement journey through Snapchat AR. While Flipkart already has an AR-enabled camera, the integration of Snap's Camera Kit will enhance its capabilities to offer consumers an opportunity to view a wider range of products across categories such as fashion, wearable technologies and more in the next few months in a more immersive manner.

The e-commerce landscape in India is changing rapidly with millions of new customers from all geographies looking for richer experiences online. This partnership will herald a new era in the e-commerce industry, enabling easy access for customers while driving growth for lakhs of our sellers, Jeyandran Venugopal, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Flipkart, said.

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Snapchat is also enabling virtual try-ons with brands like Sugar Cosmetics and MyGlamm adopting Snap's AR shopping beta program to offer virtual beauty and makeup try-on experiences to consumers. Besides, Samsung Mobile has launched a Fun Mode feature to bring some of Snap's AR-powered Lenses to their native camera app, and extended this partnership locally with their Made in India-M series smartphones.

Snap said India is the first and only market where Snapchat has distribution partnerships with all the top Android OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), which total over 100 million devices in India. On devices, Snap reduces friction for onboarding new Snapchatters, encouraging them to try the app as an engaging new way to visually communicate with their friends, it added.

"Augmented reality is at the core of Snapchat's offerings in India. Our efforts to stay culturally relevant and offer unique AR experiences have resonated with 100 million Indian Snapchatters...We aim to partner with more local creators in India to grow the number of incredible experiences available to Snapchatters," Snap co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Bobby Murphy said. He added that Snap's intent is to make AR more accessible, useful and practical than ever before.

Snap in India see an increase of net new advertisers by 70 percent in 2020 from sectors including FMCG, e-commerce, entertainment, video streaming, mobile wallets, tech OEMs and others. In the past year, Snap worked with ITC Yippee Noodles, Intel Evo, LG, OnePlus, Spotify, Swiggy and others. Snap has also recently launched Creator Marketplace, which allows brands to connect with creators directly and pay them to produce branded content with 100 percent of the transaction going to the creator.