4th October, 2022: Abhijeet Ranjan, ex-National Sales Head at Star Plus, has been appointed as the Chief Revenue Officer of Public app, India’s #1 app for local updates with over 60 million+ active users. Abhijeet will be responsible for accelerating the overall revenue growth of Public app and creating deeper in-roads with national brands aiming for deeper market penetration via vernacular advertising. Public app, which was launched by the Inshorts Group in 2019, currently has over 50 national and international brands and 30,000 small businesses advertising on the app. It offers unique hyperlocal geo-targeting abilities to advertisers, enabling them to reach the right customers in every corner of the country.
Welcoming Abhijeet, Azhar Iqubal, Co-Founder & CEO of Inshorts Group said, “Public app is today amongst the very few informative apps in India to have such massive reach amongst vernacular audiences, making it an apt platform for brands looking to connect with Bharat. Abhijeet’s role will be instrumental in further establishing Public app as a must have in the core advertising mix of national brands and I am sure his diversified industry experience will open up several new opportunities for a rapidly growing platform like ours.”
Excited about joining the team, Abhijeet Ranjan said, “Public app has seen such success in a short span because it fills a critical gap of providing users with hyperlocal updates which have a direct impact on their daily lives. The large userbase combined with innovative advertising formats and hyperlocal geo-targeting offers immense opportunities for advertisers and I am looking forward to work with the highly talented Public app team to fully harness this potential.”
Abhijeet comes with an overall experience of over 15 years. Prior to joining Public app, Abhijeet was the National Sales Head for Star Plus, the leading Hindi GEC in the country, for the last 1.5 years. In his previous stints, he has worked in various leadership positions at Snapdeal, ESPN, Network 18, HT Digital and more. Abhijeet has won the Top 50 Most Influential Marketing Leader Awards from CMO Asia for two consecutive years (2018 and 2019), amongst other notable recognitions.
Public app is a location-based social network wherein users can upload and view short videos in their preferred Indian language. The app has users spanning across major metros to remote districts, consuming content in all major Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Assamese, Gujarati, and Marathi. In direct contrast to most other entertainment focused short video social media apps, Public has established a niche for itself by providing only verified informative video content. Public became the #1 app for local updates on Google PlayStore within six month of its launch. It was ranked amongst Top 25 most used Android apps in Indiaacross all categories by Sensor Tower in July 2022 and won the Most Innovative Start-up App award by IAMAI earlier this year.
