India has now also positioned itself, again, as another top market for a social platform, with the most recent beneficiary being Snapchat. The company now reports that it serves over 200 million Indian users every month.
That means that some 27% of Snap’s entire user base is now based in India. Snapchat has 100 million daily active users (DAU) in North America, and arounD 93 million DAUs in Europe, with India making up the majority of its remaining usage.
Incredible Snapchat
While its daily and monthly usage stats aren’t really comparable, at 383 million DAU, and over 750 monthly active users (MAU), extrapolation of the available data suggests that Snap has around:
Of course, India makes up the biggest chunk, and it’s been interesting to note the rise of Snapchat in the region, particularly after India decided to ban TikTok back in 2020. Instagram seems to be the one that has benefited most from TikTok’s removal in the region, with YouTube also showing some solid increases. TikTok had over 200 million Indian users at the time of banning, with Snapchat gathering up a lot of the cast-offs, and enhancing connections with Indian users, as connective capacity in the Indian market increases.
Snapchat also benefited from the reformation of its app on Android, given how Android is the most popular OS in the Indian region. Snapchat has long resisted updating its Android app, with a former employee saying that Steven Spiegel deliberately sought to exclude India, and other developing markets, due to a perceived lack of revenue potential.
According to a lawsuit filed in 2017, when the issue of slow international adoption was raised at an internal Snapchat meeting, Spiegel explained that ‘this app is only for rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain’. Oof, what a cancel signal this sure is. Spiegel of course denied that such an exchange ever happened, even so, the essence of Spiegel’s reported stance was evident in its resistance to updating its Android UX, which made Snap far less accessible for people on lower-quality devices.
Snapchat finally updated its app in 2019, and since then Snapchat’s gone from strength to strength in the supposed ‘poor’ country of India. However, it’s still a ways off from the US in terms of revenue intake. But it is improving, and as digital connectivity becomes more ingrained in Indian society, Snap now stands to benefit from enhanced in-stream interaction, including shopping, product discovery, and more.
The Wrap
Snap says that more than 120 million Indian Snapchatters now also watch content across Stories and Spotlight each month, while time spent in India on Spotlight has more than tripled since launch. India remains a key growth focus for all social apps, and Snapchat’s relative strength in the market bodes well for its future potential, as the Indian digital economy continues to expand, facilitating all new types of opportunities.
Along with Meta and Google, Snapchat could also win out in this respect. Eventually, pending regulatory approval, the hope is that all digital platforms will form the core of all Indian commerce activity with Snap’s presence further ensuring that it benefits from such, provided it does happen.
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