Lockscreen content platform Glance recorded 163 million active users as of Q3 2021, according to Counterpoint Research’s Quarterly Mobile Application Tracker. Glance’s active user base experienced consistent growth since its inception. Its active user base, which now consists of 30% of India’s smartphone users, grew by 8% QoQ in Q3 of 2021.
Glance enables its users to access a wide range of content, including live interactive content, on their smartphone lockscreens. This content is curated from the top publishers and developers in India across categories such as sports, current affairs, fashion, travel, food, commerce, and entertainment.
Commenting on the development, Research Analyst Arushi Chawla said, “The lockscreen is the most visited real-estate on a smartphone. It is the first screen users see every time when unlocking their smartphone. Being present on this surface, Glance makes content discovery frictionless and improves the opt-in rate for interactive broadcasting, compared to any other in-app event features that require users to login. Glance’s recent foray into LIVE, interactive content has also helped it to differentiate itself as a platform and has helped boost its user engagement levels.”
Chawla added “As per our estimates, about a billion smartphones will be sold in next five years in India, which brings a huge opportunity for a content platform to expand using Hardware as a Distribution (HaaD) model. Being a multi-lingual, pre-installed application in many leading smartphone OEMs, it serves as a gateway to the latest content for many first-time smartphone users.”
Glance’s active presence is highly prominent in the $100- $250 price segment. Where about two-third of the active users came from this price band. Upper-mid-and-affordable premium ($250 and above) also consists of about 20% of the Glance active userbase.
Glance continues to strengthen engaging ways to create stickiness on the platform. With the launch of Glance LIVE, and a rise in interactive, real-time content, Glance is progressively bringing newness in content delivery. Content from Roposo’s top creators onto the Glance lockscreen platform has increased the content uniqueness as well.
India is a price-sensitive and highly competitive market for OEMs. In many cases, it directly affects their operating margin and ability to maintain their market position. As the market dynamics are moving from hardware-level competition to providing an overall holistic experience, most of the OEM’s strategy will concentrate on maximizing the customer’s lifetime value. In such a scenario long-term loyalty and value creation will depend on providing differentiating over-the-top services. Content will certainly play a key role in developing brand stickiness.
Commenting on this, Senior Research Analyst Pavel Naiya said, “Glance has created a unique positioning by pioneering the use of lockscreen as an asset for content discovery and by launching live, interactive content. With more OEMs looking to build deeper, more long-term content strategies for users, the presence of a content platform like Glance on devices can add great value. Glance can also be deeper integrated as a feature or can be added as an additional system update to optimize its performance as the consumer preference evolves.” Over the past year, Glance has expanded its user base beyond India and is currently also available on devices across Southeast Asia.
