'India, the next big thing for Facebook'

Kirthiga Reddy (42), Facebook's India chief, says that India is the next big thing for his business. 

NEW DELHI: She's the India head of a global firm that celebrates its 10th anniversary this week, and the company's founder is a tech icon who says India is the next big thing for his business. She appears confident the Indian market can deliver what the boss wants.

Kirthiga Reddy (42), Facebook's India chief, says her challenge is to make Indian firms seeFacebook as a mass media, not social media. "That's the shift that I see, that's the kind of conversation I have with Indian CEOs and CMOs," Reddy says.

"Zuck ( Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder) sees India as a key market...a large market for our monetisation drive, a lead market for emerging economy models," says Reddy, who joined the company in July 2010. "What we learn in India, we implement elsewhere," she adds.

FB's India numbers are impressive: 93 million users, second only to the US user base, and as many as 75 million of these are on mobile (December 2013). Given FB's globally announced emphasis on exploiting the mobile platform, FB India seems to have the right kind of platform.

Facebook, as a company, started operations in India about four years ago and Reddy came on board when the user base was a mere 8 million in the country.

How to lure businesses Facebook adds about 2 million new users a month in India and offers services in nine languages.

But just as Facebook is answering questions on the eve of its 10th anniversary about its business model, Reddy has a battle on her hands - to make a user base that may soon reach 100 million attractive enough for businesses.

She seems very confident: "I know 18 months from now it will be a different media landscape and Facebook is going to be a key part of fuelling that change." The India head, who has 2,000 Facebook friends, argues companies and brands across categories will adopt the platform. She gives examples.

"There are over a million advertisers on Facebook globally, a very significant milestone for us to reach. We don't share country-specific numbers. But I can see different genres of advertisers coming. Coca-Cola India did significant launches with us last year. Yepme, an online fashion retailer, used Facebook and got 4.5 times returns on ad-sales dollars. Small businesses such as Pigtales and Ponys - two college students in Bangalore started this hair accessories company - leveraged Facebook and it became a business on its own."

"Whether it is Nitin Paranjpae (former chief of HUL) or Srini (CVL Srinivas) from GroupM or other media planners, the first thing they want to know is how to use the platform. They want to be educated. A lot of companies have been using Facebook for fan engagement and that is valuable in itself. We have studies that show fans buy 1.9 times more than non-fans. However, fans are a small percentage of the target audience. Facebook as a whole is a valuable platform."

Reddy says Facebook India's appeal to companies is its ability to deliver specific targets. "We are effective and efficient because of our ability to do targeted ads. For example, when Samsung did its Note 3 launch last quarter, they used different creatives for men and women on Facebook. Brands can't do this on television or in print. Another example is the launch of Nokia 205, where through Facebook, the company targeted the feature phone users with a customised message because they were most likely to upgrade to the new model."

Reddy has a message to advertisers on their key metric - returns on investment (RoI): "It's the ability to drive a message in a particular way with zero spillage that drives RoI. We are results-focused. We ask brands what are your biggest brand and business objectives? We can deliver the next stage of growth."

While Reddy declined to share revenue numbers for India, citing global policy, she rubbished analyst talk on the platform being less relevant over the next five years. "We have read all the doom and gloom articles. You can see the data and figures of our growth and they tell a different story. We have seamless integration, the best mobile products and solutions in the market."

Whether Reddy or her boss 'Zuck' are right is a matter, analysts say, that will be resolved soon. Facebook pessimists and optimists are both making predictions on the company's 10th anniversary.

For India, we may have the beginnings of the answer in 18 months, as Facebook's India chief insists
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