Snapchat has recorded 100% growth in daily active users (DAU) in India over the past one year, Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap said in the earnings call on Tuesday. The company had earlier announced its results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020, where it posted a year-over-year (YoY) revenue increase of 17% to US$454 million. Snap, the company behind the Snapchat platform said that the DAUs grew by 17% YoY with the platform now hosting 238 million DAUs in Q2, 2020, an increase of 35 million YoY.
Snap to Continue Investing in App Performance and Localization
The company said that the DAUs increased both sequentially and YoY in each of its regions including North America, Europe and Rest of World. Snap said that its users have opened the Snapchat application over 30 times a day in Q2, 2020.
Spiegel in the earnings call said that the company will continue to invest in-app performance and localization to make its service more accessible to people across the world.
“These efforts have helped us grow even faster in emerging markets like India, where we’ve seen over 100% growth in daily active users over the past year,” Spiegel said in the earnings call on Tuesday.
Snapchat is said to be available “to over two billion people in their native language.” In India, the app is available in English and all south Indian languages including Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu along with Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi.
“A good example of this momentum can be seen in India, where daily active users more than doubled year-over-year in Q2,” Derek Andersen, the chief financial officer of Snap, said in the earnings call. “We see a significant opportunity to continue to grow our community as we further invest in localization of our product through language support, local content, and marketing partnerships across a variety of geographies.”
Snapchat to Continue Investment in Camera and Augmented Reality Platform
In its earnings release, Snap said that over 180 million Snapchatters engaged with augmented reality (AR) each day in Q2, 2020. During the second quarter, the company had announced a Voice Scan feature that enables users to activate AR Lenses with their voice. Additional features that were announced during the quarter include Local Lenses, music Lenses and Dynamic Lenses.
“As the changing public health landscape accelerates the adoption of digital products, we believe there is a large opportunity for us to further empower new behaviours with AR, entertainment, and commerce,” Spiegel said. “We’re especially excited to see that the adoption of our AR platform is also accelerating, with the number of people playing with Lenses every day growing by 37% year-over-year.”
The company also said that the average number of Snapchatters watching Shows daily on its platform increased by over 45% YoY in the Q2, 2020. Crucially, the company said that the average number of Snapchatters over the age of 35 engaging with its Discover content increased over 40% YoY in Q2, 2020.
“Snapchat has become a go-to destination for credible and accurate news content during the pandemic, with more than half of the entire U.S. Gen Z population watching COVID-related news created by our partners,” Spiegel said.
