Super excited about growing the AR ecosystem in India: Saket Jha Saurabh, Snapchat

Snapchat’s Augmented Reality (AR) experiences have become an integral part of digital expression, with over 80 billion uses of AR lenses each month in India. To honour the creators and innovators behind this revolution, Snapchat recently organized India AR Day 2025, a celebration of the bold new reality being shaped by AR technology.

The event brought together AR developers, artists, and tech enthusiasts, highlighting the latest advancements and creative possibilities in the space.

Saket Jha Saurabh, Director - Content & AR Partnerships at Snap Inc,  took to LinkedIn to discuss the growth of the AR ecosystem in India. “80 Billion - That is the number of times Snapchatters use Augmented Reality (AR) lenses every month in India. AR is here. And like how. To celebrate the shapers of this bold new reality, we organised India AR Day 2025 recently. This day was not just a celebration of the best and brightest in AR in India, and a showcase of our latest products. It was also a great moment to recognise India's ascendance as a global AR powerhouse”, he said in his LinkedIn post.

Here's the full text of his LinkedIn post:

"80 Billion- That is the number of times Snapchatters use Augmented Reality (AR) lenses every month in India.

AR is here. And like how.

To celebrate the shapers of this bold new reality, we organised India AR Day 2025 recently.

This day was not just a celebration of the best and brightest in AR in India , and a showcase of our latest products. It was also a great moment to recognise India's ascendance as a global AR powerhouse.

A place where hundreds of thousands of passionate Creators are using 'Lens Studio', our free AR development platform, to launch themselves into journeys of Creativity, Expression, and Entrepreneurship.

No surprise then that in 2024 - the largest number of AR lenses created globally were from India and our developer community here is now the 2nd largest worldwide, growing over 50% in the last 2 years.

What excites me the most in all this?

None of this is a big city phenomenon. Far from it actually. Our AR creators come from all parts of the country. From Prayagraj to Cochin, From Surat to Ambala. This is a true testament to India's digital story and our vibrant Creator Economy.

And what a day it was...The Mumbai event brought together India's top AR creators, developers, brands, partners and the wider community. The community spoke and shared journeys. We set up interactive experiences to showcase AR's true potential - from entertainment to utility. Snap’s 'Any Body Can Develop' experience offered guests a hands-on opportunity to learn and create their own Lenses. The big crowd puller was 'Spectacles', Snap's fifth-generation see-through AR glasses, which were available for demonstration for the first time in India. We recognised the amazing success of our AR Creators with the launch of the India Lens Awards.

AR Day is of course part of our much larger effort to support the AR community. It starts by making our products as easy to use as possible. But it does not end there.

We enabled over 100 AR Community Meet Ups across India in 2024, engaging over 6000 developers, ranging from Rajkot to Trichy, Gwalior to Coimbatore. We worked with many leading Educational institutions to nurture young talent with vital creative digital skills. We built local initiatives to enable our Snap Lens Network members to access monetisation opportunities with brands, putting creators on a path to build sustainable careers.

We are super excited about growing the AR ecosystem in India. There is no better place than here.

As Snap Inc. co-founder, Bobby Murphy often says - AR is an amazing fusion of Creativity & Technology. And those are two things India is really good at. So, watch this space".