India plays a key role in Meta's global strategy, serving as both a major user base and a testing ground for new products, according to Sandhya Devanathan, Meta's Head in India. In a recent interview with TOI, Devanathan highlighted the country’s significant contribution to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, noting that India accounts for over 200 million Threads downloads.
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Social Media Growth in India
When asked about social media growth in India, Devanathan reportedly said: "It's not just Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, but even for the recently-launched Threads, India is one of the largest markets globally with over 200 million downloads. We're seeing continued momentum and growth, across the board. Also, we are witnessing an equally strong adoption of newer products such as AI platform, Llama."
Using India as the PlayBook
Speaking about leveraging India’s large user base as a starting point for new products and features, Devanathan reportedly said: "We are almost sort of using India as the playbook, you know, for global. Consider this: India was one of the first countries to test and launch Instagram Reels in 2020. Today, it's one of the strongest products that we have globally."
She further added: "India is also the first country where we launched Payments on WhatsApp Business. Also, India is the biggest market for Meta AI in terms of usage. It is among the top three markets globally for the adoption of our open-source large language AI model, Llama," the report said.
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Testing Business Calling Feature on WhatsApp
Currently, the company is testing a small business calling feature on WhatsApp, developed with an "India first" approach. Explaining the feature, she reportedly said, "We are piloting in India a test around small business calling on WhatsApp. Basically, it's about when you're chatting with a small business on WhatsApp and suddenly the chat is not enough and you want to talk to a person. It's not automatically calling a business but remains within the context of the chat. You can then call the business. It has also been built with an India-first lens."
India, Centre of Innovation
Devanathan emphasised India's importance in Meta's product development process: "I and the team remain proud of this - how we make India the centre of where we innovate, where we build products and then take them global, all because we have that scale here."
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India's importance extends to Meta's AI projects, particularly with the Llama platform. According to Devanathan, Indian developers are driving global growth for Meta's open-source large language model, the report said.
Devanathan also expressed confidence in India's evolving regulatory landscape, calling the Digital Personal Data Protection Act a positive step forward for the company. "We welcome regulation, especially if it's progressive," she reportedly said.
