Not Trying To Become E-Commerce Company: YouTube India MD To NDTV

Shopping is a big growth area for YouTube but it does not intend to become an e-commerce company, YouTube India's Managing Director Gunjan Soni has said.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV's Shiv Aroor on Tuesday, when the 2025 YouTube India impact report was released, showing that the platform contributed Rs 18,000 crore to India's GDP, Soni said the watch time for shopping content, which was already high, increased 55% year on year.

Asked about YouTube India's plans in the area, Soni said, "We are not trying to become an e-commerce company ourselves. Our approach is to work with e-commerce partners to bring alive their journey. Nearly 450 million logged-in users had shopping-related searches on YouTube, so they were actively seeking input. On top of that, the the watch time, which speaks to engagement, for shopping content increased year-on-year by 55%, and it was already very high to start with," she said. 

READ | 20% More Creators Earning Over 7 Figures: YouTube India MD To NDTV

"What we are therefore allowing our creators to now do is to be able to tag real products and real brands into these videos directly so you don't have to discover here and go somewhere to try and complete your journey. When you click on the tagged product, it takes you seamlessly to the merchant partner where you can complete the purchase. Then the creator earns a commission as a result of it. So this helps the merchants, creators and the overall economic contribution, because the retail economy itself is slated for very high growth in India," she explained. 

Soni said YouTube sees its primary role as building the infrastructural foundation and ensuring that creation is easier. 

"We are also introducing new kinds of products and one such that we recently announced is the ability for brands to be able to look at organically pre-tagged or created content and then be able to boost it. That is almost like having a testing lab at scale and knowing which content is already working for your brand and supporting that. So we are actively helping, but our route is an at-scale infrastructure- and technology-driven route and we complement it with trainings as well," she emphasised. 

READ | AI Role In 2 Lakh Channels, Big Addition To GDP: YouTube India Head To NDTV

The YouTube India head said she is always excited to see creators becoming entrepreneurs and CEOs of their own media companies.

"I'll take a very simple example, pun not intended, of a channel called 'Simple Ghar'. They started out with the vision, back in 2022, to really help households make better purchase decisions. They ended up using a converted room with a small camera, which was the norm for how people got started out. Today they employ 35 people and create in more than seven languages. And this is not a one-off case. This is becoming the norm, and I think that is the reason behind those big numbers that we are starting to see happen in the economy," she said.