Snapchat looking to expand India business based on growth in user base: Report

Social media platform Snapchat is eyeing significant growth in its India business owing to a surge in usage, according to media reports.

Snapchat’s daily active user base (DAU) in India increased by 120 per cent year-on-year in March 2020, according to the report.

The photo-sharing platform is planning on expanding its team in India and focussing further on developing culturally relevant products, while building upon community engagement and new partnerships, it said.

On average, over 4 billion Snaps were created by Snapchat users each day in March, the report said. Globally, the platform had 229 million daily users in the quarter ending in March.

Social media platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok have seen massive growth over the past couple of months owing to a nationwide lockdown.

According to a recent study by online content management platform SEMrush, “During the lockdown, the number of Indians searching for social media platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp has grown.”

TikTok, especially, has seen increased interest from users. From February to March, the number of searches for Tik Tok grew from 50 lakhs to 74.8 lakhs, an increase of 49.6 per cent, as per the report. In the same period, searches for Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram increased from 3.68 lakhs to 4.5 lakhs, 5.56 crore to 6.8 crore, and 3.72 crore to 4.55 crore, it said. Searches for WhatsApp remained steady at 1.1 crore during this time.

For instance, last month, Instagram introduced a range of new features owing to this increased usage, including bringing live videos to desktop, after recently bringing direct messages to its web platform.

Instagram is also testing a new ‘Challenges stickers’ feature for its stories that lets users join challenges through a sticker, via the stories text tool, or from nominations from friends.