Snapchat added that time spent on Spotlight has tripled.
American multimedia social media platform Snapchat has achieved a major milestone in India and surpassed 200 million monthly active users in the country. Additionally, more than 120 million Indian users watch content across stories and Spotlight, the company said on Tuesday.
“Yesterday, we announced an exciting milestone: Snapchat now reaches more than 200 million Indians each month,” Snap Asia-Pacific President Ajit Mohan said. “Building a localised platform experience and developing local content for Indian users has been critical to this growth, and I could not be more energised by what lays ahead for Snapchat and our Indian community, creators, clients and partners,” he added.
The company added that time spent on Spotlight, a dedicated section within Snapchat where users can discover and view user-generated short-form videos, has tripled. More than 85% of Snapchatters in India use its augmented reality Lenses to visually express themselves during the festive months. Snap’s Indian users play with its AR Lenses over 50 billion times every month. To better serve the Indian audience, Snapchat plans to expand its teams and operations with hires across a variety of roles.
In February, the social media company said it has over 750 million active monthly users. Out of this, 90% of the users are in the age group of 18-24 years. The company plans to move in a direction where it attracts over 1 billion people in the next two to three years.
Meanwhile, the company is also in the news after it launched My AI, Snapchat’s new chatbot running the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology, in late February. The feature was initially rolled out as an experimental feature for Snapchat+ subscribers and became available to all, including the non-paying users, last month.
“My AI can recommend birthday gift ideas for your BFF, plan a hiking trip for a long weekend, suggest a recipe for dinner, or even write a haiku about cheese for your cheddar-obsessed pal. Make My AI your own by giving it a name and customizing the wallpaper for your Chat,” Snap said in a blog. There are many deficiencies in My AI and the company will store all conversations with My AI that may be reviewed to improve the product experience, the company added.
The social media app saw an influx of negative reviews and social media complaints since the feature became available to all users. Snapchatters have expressed frustration with the My AI feature, primarily due to its unremovable placement at the top of the chat feed. Users have no control over the chatbot’s position in the app, as it cannot be unpinned, blocked, or removed.
