Snapchat is making a quiet comeback in India

According to Web analytics service provider SimilarWeb, Snapchat garnered 102.4 million downloads on the Google Play Store in India between January and August. During this period, Instagram recorded 230 million downloads on Android devices in India. A digital media agency executive noted that Snapchat had only 7 million monthly active users, or MAUs, in India in June 2019. According to industry estimates, MAUs have grown seven times since then.

Gen Z-ers and Millennials Now Snap Inc. U.S. flagship app for better quality augmented reality (AR) filters to create videos, or because they find Instagram too “addictive” or “anxiety-inducing”. An industry insider told Mint that many film industry celebs are back on Snapchat to chat with friends because Instagram is “too public”.

Influencer marketing agencies say companies such as Nykaa, Spotify, Netflix and Myntra have increased their ad spend on the platform. “Snapchat Marketing is a smart investment for brands. Although the platform is less talked about in campaign strategy meetings, it holds a unique position in the market, thanks to its AR filters, games, and personalized stories by creators,” said Prince, co-founder of influential marketing firm Ileve Media. Khanna says.

Snapchat is still a third the size of Instagram in India in terms of daily and monthly active users (DAUs and MAUs) on Android phones, but data shows that it continues to grow and compares well with some domestic TikTok alternatives like MX. is performing better. Takatak and passion on both standards.

Between January and August 2021, Snapchat received an average of 24.7 million DAUs on the Google Play Store, compared to MX TakaTak’s 5.9 million and Josh’s 2.5 million, according to SimilarWeb. According to data from SimilarWeb, it has registered an estimated 59 million MAUs, compared to 24.8 million for MX Takatak and 13 million for Josh, a short-video-sharing platform from the makers of the Dailyhunt news aggregator app. However, MX Takatak told Mint that it has 150 million MAUs across all devices.

Digital marketers argue that it may not be entirely correct to compare Snapchat with a TikTok clone as the first is a user-generated content platform while the rest are led by influencers and content creators. That said, these are all ultimately short-video-sharing social media platforms vying for advertisers’ limited digital marketing budgets.

“Snapchat has seen a 100% (y-o-y) growth in daily active users (DAUs) over the past five quarters, which is a good sign for the platform to pay attention,” says Amin Ghadiyali, VP – Business and Digital Strategy in the agency Gozoop. This has especially piqued the interest of advertisers for their AR marketing campaigns targeting younger audiences in the 13-24 age group.

“In 2019, 80% of our AR business came from Instagram and about 10% from Snapchat,” says Hardik Shah, COO of Superfan Studios, which specializes in AR experiences. “Today, it’s 60% from Snapchat and 40% from Instagram.” “

recent instagram Video Addressing toxic relationships in his unique style, popular content creator Danish Sait plays a character who threatens to jump in front of a train unless his significant other forgives him for lying about smoking. “I used the Snapchat filter, sorry baby,” he says at the end, and the video ends. One out of every five comments on this post, which has been viewed by half a million users and liked by 150,000, harps on the mention “Snapchat Filter”, which refers to people using Snapchat’s AR filters for platforms like Instagram. How common is it to make videos for

It was recently announced that Snapchat Lens—the AR filter that people use to create videos and cross-post to other platforms like Instagram—will be integrated into the cameras of the JioPhone Next, a collaborative smartphone project between Reliance Industries and Google. will be integrated into Moj, a short-video app by ShareChat with over 100 million installs, has already integrated Snapchat Lens with its camera feature. Snapchat’s parent company Snap Inc. rebranded itself as a camera company before its IPO in 2017. The success of its AR capabilities has contributed significantly to its global comeback as the company posted an all-time high revenue of $911 million. It overtook it with $982 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 and again in the second quarter of 2021.

Despite this, Snapchat is not yet a “media essential” platform. [in India], say gossip’s alligators. It is growing but if less knowledgeable marketers still prefer the reach of Instagram.

Snapchat remains a favorite of users and marketers for its features. Shah of Superfan Studios says he finds value in the app’s Maps feature that lets you view snaps of users around the world without revealing the user’s identity, a feature that’s not available on any other short-video-sharing platform right now. is not with me.

“If someone asks me to delete an account, I have to go to Instagram because I have too many pictures on Snapchat,” says Tanvi Chauhan, a 16-year-old science student from Kolkata. Chauhan had downloaded Instagram for a week in 2018 but deleted the app after realizing “how addictive it was”. She reinstated Instagram for the reels last year when TikTok was banned in India.

Saransh Arora, 24, spends more time on Instagram than Snapchat, but feels that “Instagram is too much to digest at times Posts, Stories, Reels, Live and IGTV all in one place.” Snapchat has stuck to sending photos, says Aurora, a business development professional at a creative agency, admitting to having 1000-day-long streaks (of constantly sharing photos) with some of her friends.

Srishti Millicent, a 27-year-old digital marketer from Chandigarh, says, “Snapchat is like home to me whereas Instagram is like a club.