Snapchat reaches 100 million monthly users in India, partners with Flipkart, Zomato and MyGlamm for AR integrations

• Snapchat now has a monthly reach of 100 million users in India.
• The company announced this milestone at its second ‘Snap in India’ event today.
• It also announced AR partnerships with Flipkart, Zomato, Sugar Cosmetics and MyGlamm.

Snap Inc., hosted its second ‘Snap in India’ event on Wednesday, where its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Evan Spiegel announced a major milestone of Snapchat reaching 100 million monthly users in India.

This is a big jump from the 60 million user base it revealed earlier this year. The company also announced partnerships with Flipkart, Zomato, Sugar Cosmetics and MyGlamm to integrate its AR technology into these platforms.

Snap did not reveal its daily active users (DAUs) or monthly active users (MAUs) for Snapchat in India but it said that the app has been witnessing over a 100% growth in DAUs. “For the last seven quarters we’ve been growing at more than 100% when it comes to our daily active users,” Nana Murugesan, managing director of international markets at Snap Inc., told Business Insider in an interview.

The app has been witnessing an upward trend in numbers ever since Snap opened its first India office in 2019. It also became the fifth most downloaded social media app in India, according to App Annie. But the app is yet to break into the mainstream social media scene.

On this Murugesan said, “We’ve always never looked at ourselves as a traditional platform. We’ve always taken a very innovative approach. The good news is once our community embraces us we see really good stickiness. The retention metrics are very strong so we’re kind of happy with that. We’re happy that every platform has its own place. We’re happy with where we are with respect to doubling down on a creation first approach, a camera first approach and then using that as a way to drive those human connections.”

In India, the two key areas where Snapchat is seeing the most growth are augmented reality (AR) and chatting. “One thing which is great about India is that people are really embracing augmented reality and the camera so definitely the camera is extremely engaging and very very strong. As we invest more and more in that particular area that’s seeing very healthy and strong growth.”

Murugesan also attributes content partnerships as an accelerator for the platform’s growth in India. At the event, Snap announced that it is partnering with e-commerce platform Flipkart that will use Snapchat AR for an immersive shopping experience. Snapchat users will also get to virtually try on makeup from Sugar Cosmetics and MyGlamm.

Zomato is also coming to Snapchat with the food aggregator integrated into Snap Map, which is an in-app map. Snapchat users will have access to restaurant information including hours of operation, locations, contact details, customer reviews, menus, and photographs. They will also be able to place food orders from Snapchat itself.

Another key area of partnership and growth for Snapchat is with Android OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer). India is now the first and only market where Snapchat is pre-installed in over 100 million devices. The company has successfully partnered with all the top Android OEMs to pre-install its app on their devices. It recently announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Google for the Pixel 6 series where the app opens from the lock screen itself.

Murugesan did not reveal if we will see such a partnership with more OEMs, but he did say that the company is “talking to multiple partners“ and wants to “bring this to as many partners as possible”. Snapchat has also integrated its AR filters into the camera app of the JioPhone Next smartphone that’s due to launch next week.

Going forward, Snap plans to double down on community engagement through AR in India, and help creators monetise on the platform. “We initially focused on helping creators build their audiences, but now we are helping them monetise too. We’re actually introducing features where fans of creators can gift them. So if you like a creator or really enjoyed something you can give a gift so that’s a way of monetisation. We’re also connecting creators directly to brands through our creator marketplace and 100% of the transaction goes straight to the creator,” Murugesan said.

The company also has big plans for content and gaming in India. Phone Swap India, the first non-English Snap Original has been confirmed for two more seasons. We will also see exclusive creator shows with Shehnaaz Gill, Avneet Kaur, Harsh Beniwal and Sushant Divgikar. After the launch of Ludo Club, Snap will now launch another Indian favourite - carrom.

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