How Snapchat is building its AR base in India

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Editor's note: On a cold Friday morning in Mumbai, Durgesh Kaushik settles into his chair and launches into a well-versed speech on the company’s core values. An old marketing hand, Snapchat’s India managing director comes from nearly 17 years of experience of working with the likes of Reliance Jio and Facebook. On a video call, his demeanour is as quiet as Snapchat India’s turnaround over the past three years.  In early 2019, Snapchat only had 5 million monthly active users in India, according to a person closely associated with the California-headquartered private messaging company. Late last year, the company announced it had hit 100 million monthly active users in India. This should make it the company’s largest market, according to the person quoted above, who asked not to be named; Snapchat declined to confirm. The platform has upwards of 500 million monthly active users globally. “You probably only noticed the growth in the last six months,” says Kaushik. “But the reality is that we started seeing momentum right at the onset of the India operations. We have seen more than 100% year-on-year …