From Patna to Coimbatore, local play works for Snapchat

Snapchat's attempts to tailor its app, features, and content experience to suit local tastes, aesthetic sense, culture and user behaviour have seen its popularity soar in India.

- Lata Jha & Pratishtha Bagai

Saket Jha Saurabh, director and head, content and augmented reality partnerships, Snap Inc.

The time spent watching content on the American multimedia instant messaging app has doubled in India over the past two years, boosted by its efforts to customize the service and deepen engagement with Gen Z, whom it views as its key target audience, a top company official said. The company declined to share the exact time spent on the platform, but industry estimates put it at 15-30 minutes per day per user in India, where it has 250 million active users.

The company said the number of official Snap Stars (a verified Snapchat creator recognized for high-quality content, public presence, and popularity) in India has risen by 1.5 times in the past two years.