Glance has entered into an exclusive partnership with mobile phone brand realme, to power the lock screen of its smartphones in India and Indonesia with exciting content. According to realme’s estimates, Glance will be rolled out on approximately 30 million of its smartphones in India, and 7 million in Indonesia, by the end of CY2022, which is expected to give a boost to Glance’s active user base in these countries.
Over the next two years, Glance is expected to be available on a majority of realme’s devices in these regions, enabling realme consumers to discover high quality, personalised content in multiple languages and categories from top publishers on their lock screens. As a result of this partnership, realme users in India will be able to access Glance LIVE, a live streaming service with real time content by celebrities and creators across sports, current affairs, live games and commerce. The platform will also offer Glance Game Center, which hosts a wide variety of games in multiple genres and engaging features such as liking and sharing of lock screen content with friends via messaging services.
Commenting on the partnership, Francis Wong, Chief Marketing Officer, realme, India, said, “Glance has pioneered the use of lock screen as a platform for content discovery, bringing users some of the best infotainment and live content from across the internet. At realme, we are committed to providing our users the latest and most premium experiences available in the market. We believe that the Glance proposition of live, trending, 24/7 content on lock screen will be a true differentiator for our devices. We estimate rolling out Glance on approximately 30 million phones in India, and on close to 7 million phones in Indonesia over the next 12 months.”
Aditya Goyal, Vice President & General Manager, Strategic Distribution Partnerships, Glance, added, “realme is one of the fastest growing smart phone brands in India and Southeast Asia, with a state-of-the-art product line, ranging from entry to premium categories. It is especially popular amongst the youth, who form the majority of Glance’s user base. Given its demographic and technological strengths, we believe that realme is a great partner for us to make further inroads into these markets with. Through this partnership, Glance will bring realme consumers in India and Indonesia the same high quality content experience that nearly 175 million Glance users currently enjoy.”
Glance has been adopted on leading Android smart phone brands and has over 150 million active users in India, and 25 million in Southeast Asia. It has a broad network of global content partners, comprising top media houses, celebrities, creators, and more. Advertisers leverage Glance’s user base and its artificial intelligence driven content discovery to reach consumers in a targeted way. Publishers benefit from the increased web traffic that Glance drives, whereas for device manufacturers, Glance creates unique opportunities for consumer engagement, and revenue generation.
In a recently published report, market research firm Counterpoint Research has said that value added services like Glance are key for smartphone makers to stay ahead in this highly competitive market. “As the overall smartphone market is maturing and consolidating, with top OEMs capturing most of the market, it is also a challenge to maintain hardware differentiation when the form factors remain similar. In such a scenario, the long-term value creation will depend more on delivering differentiation through over-the-top (OTT) services. Therefore, Glance, with its presence in top smartphone brands, holds a vital role,” said Research Analyst Arushi Chawla, Counterpoint Research.
