Snap Plots International Expansion

Nana Murugesan, managing director of international markets at Snap Inc., told APOS delegates about how the mobile-native company is aligning with content creators worldwide and plotting expansion in key territories like India.

“We are not a social media company,” Murugesan said on the company’s positioning. “We are a mobile-native, camera-native, privacy-first company.”

The company has 190 million daily active users worldwide. “In markets like the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France and Australia, we are larger in terms of reach with the Gen Z demographic—13 to 24—than Facebook or Instagram. We also have significant strength in the Nordics and the Middle East.”

The Asia Pacific is a key growth priority, Murugesan said.

Snap works with media companies via AR experiences for its camera platform, Snap Kit, which enables the integration of Snapchat features on other platforms, including content for the Discover platform and through Stories, Shows and Originals. “Globally we’ve doubled the number of partners in the last six months,” he said.

Monetization opportunities at Snap include the skippable Snap Ads, which run for up to ten seconds each, and six-second, non-skippable commercials.

Content on Snap is catered to an “attention-discriminate audience. These are users who look at their phones more than 100 times a day. They’re not watching content in one shot. We look at the three-second rule; if you can’t capture the audience within three seconds, it’s probably not going to do well on our platform. Storytelling is a creative collaboration with our partners.”

In India, which is a major growth market for Snap, the company has signed up 20 content partners and has localized in four languages. It also localized in four languages in Southeast Asia.

The company is exploring telco and device partnerships in India and focusing on tentpoles like cricket and this year’s elections.