WAVES 2025: India big focus market for YouTube, says Gautam Anand

YouTube's Asia Pacific VP says India leads innovation for platform with Shorts, Create app, and shopping launched here first, highlighting its scale and growth potential

India is a huge focus market for YouTube for every initiative that it is working on, said Gautam Anand, YouTube’s Vice President for Asia Pacific region, while citing the launches of YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create apps -- which were first launched in India.

 

“It is a huge focus market for us on everything that we’re doing, (for example) YouTube Shorts was first launched in India before anywhere else in the world. Also, our YouTube Create app was first launched in India before anywhere else in the world. India is one of the few markets globally where we are focused on shopping and commerce,” Anand told Business Standard on the sidelines of the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES).

 

He said that initially, the platform’s shopping and commerce model was just focused in the US, South Korea, and India. But now, YouTube has added Indonesia and a few other markets in Southeast Asia.

 

On similar lines, its branding initiative is also a major focus in India.

 

“It’s one of the few markets where we’re really focused. Our attention is here because we understand that India not only has a massive scale, but also has a tremendous growth potential,” he said.

 

Recently, the platform had launched a partnership with Flipkart to help or give opportunities for creators to generate revenue through affiliate fees. This comes after a rising number of brands focused their budgets on brand collaborations and brand deals.

 

“That’s an area that we’re also now trying to figure out (on) how we do more for our creators and fostering that connection between brands and creators (that) will become increasingly important (for the platform),” he noted.

 

Globally, YouTube has 125 million premium users. While Anand did not disclose the premium users it has in India, he said, “I would just say that I’m super excited about the growth prospects for premium subscription here. I think that there’s a lot more room, and later on in the year, we’ll be announcing a few initiatives that will hopefully help drive that (premium users in India).”