Lockscreen content firm Glance active user base crosses 160 mn in India

Firm gives users access to a wide range of content, including live interactive, on their smartphone lockscreens.

Lockscreen content platform Glance recorded 163 million active users as of Q3 2021 in India, according to an independent report about the "most visited real-estate on a smartphone".

Glance’s active user base, comprising 30 per cent of India’s smartphone users, grew by 8% QoQ in Q3 of 2021, said Counterpoint Research’s Quarterly Mobile Application Tracker.

Glance is prominent in the $100- $250 price segment that forms two-third of active users. Upper-mid-and-affordable premium ($250 and above) comprise about 20 per cent of the Glance’s active userbase.

Glance enables its users to access a wide range of content, including live interactive, 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.

“The lockscreen is the most visited real-estate on a smartphone. It is the first screen users see every time when unlocking their smartphone. 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,” said Arushi Chawla, research analyst at Counterpoint Research.

India is a price-sensitive and highly competitive market for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). 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, said the report.

“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,” said Pavel Naiya, a senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research.