BENGALURU: Snap is betting big on Gen Z to grow its India story by curating engaging content and leveraging its augmented reality (AR) platform to drive higher adoption.
“India is home to 20% of Gen Z worldwide. The power of consumption in the next decade is going to be driven by Gen Z, because their income will quadruple to $33 trillion,” Pulkit Trivedi, India managing director of Snap, told TOI.
Trivedi said Snapchat is an antidote to traditional social media – it opens to a camera and not a feed powered by an algorithm. “ Every two out of five consumers in India are Gen Z consumers. About 120 million of the 200 million community consume content on Snapchat. And our content consumption time has tripled in the last two years. We will continue to invest in India and make sure that the momentum drives our growth ambition. When you look at the 13 to 24 age group, 78% of those Snapchatters don’t use Twitter daily and 55% of them don’t use Facebook daily. So, creators find a lot of value in terms of engaging with the Gen Z audience,” he added.
At the heart of Snapchat’s visual experience is a camera-first approach, fostering creativity and connection. It has not only resonated among young users but also underscored its dominance in AR. In Bengaluru, a YouGov survey revealed that 82% recognize Snapchat providing the best lenses, with 80% using Snapchat lenses to share greetings or celebrate festivals with their family and friends. Snap said they are leveraging its AR platform as a comprehensive solution for modern advertising challenges. “The fact that we have 200 million people and have the best AR capabilities, we are a visual platform. I’m not trying to get users to click on something and drive them to another platform where an augmented experience is being delivered. I am basically bringing that experience to native users,” Trivedi added.
Snapchat has also morphed into an ad platform catering to advertiser’s goal across the funnel, from acquiring new customers to driving repeat purchases. “The digital ads market in India has grown to about $10 billion. Industry estimates showed that by 2030, it will more than double. So, we are talking about India becoming one of the top three or four digital advertising markets in the world. And this is driven by the surge in commerce and video consumption,” he said.