Reddit is ramping up efforts to attract more users outside of the U.S., putting countries like India and Brazil in focus as it looks to unlock new advertising opportunities, a top company executive told CNBC.
In a wide-ranging interview, Jen Wong, chief operating officer of Reddit, said other platforms have 80% to 90% of users outside of the U.S. while about half of her company’s current users are based internationally.
“So that points to a lot of our future user growth opportunity definitely outside of the U.S. and local language,” Wong told CNBC. “The opportunity, the way I think about it, is every language is an opportunity for another Reddit.”
Reddit has historically been an English-language platform, but the company is looking to expand its international reach with the help of artificial intelligence translations. This year, Reddit launched a feature that automatically translates its site into different languages.
Wong said that around 20 to 30 languages could be available by the end of the year.
India opportunity
Among the company’s fastest-growing markets in terms of users is the U.K., the Philippines, India and Brazil.
“India’s growing really rapidly,” Wong said. “We see a big opportunity in India.”
The Reddit COO said that India has a large English-speaking internet population, and there are lots of engaged users around topics like cricket and the Bollywood movie industry.
Wong also said Reddit has been meeting with “mods” — or moderators, who oversee content on communities on the site.
Advertising opportunity
Growth in markets like India can propel Reddit to boost ad revenue, its main source of income.
International markets account for just over 17% of Reddit’s revenue currently, according to the company’s third-quarter results, despite around 50% of its users being located outside the U.S.
Wong said that Reddit first attempts cross-border advertising for international markets, such as when a European brand is looking to advertise in the U.S. Then, when Reddit hits about 10% of a country’s internet population in a country, there is an opportunity to build teams focused on local advertising — like an Indian brand advertising to Indian users.
This has not yet happened in many markets, but Reddit is keeping an eye on many of its fastest growing countries, Wong said.
New search tools
Reddit users will know that it’s not always the easiest site to find what you’re looking for — a drawback that the company is now looking to change with new search tools.
During Reddit’s third-quarter earnings call last month, CEO Steve Huffman called search on the platform a “focused investment” in 2025.
Wong expanded that the company is thinking of its search feature as a way of helping users to navigate around the site to find similar topics or posts that they may have otherwise missed.
“You land on a post and but it’s almost like a dead end. But there are a lot of posts, often like that post, or there are other posts like that post in other communities. And so giving you a total view of what that looks like is a really interesting opportunity,” Wong said.
“Guiding you through Reddit as you follow that line of thinking, is how we think of the opportunity.”
Wong declined to say more except, “We’re testing a lot of things.”
US President Donald Trump (r) and Apple CEO Tim Cook speak to the press during a tour of the Flextronics computer manufacturing facility where Apple’s Mac Pros are assembled in Austin, Texas, on November 20, 2019.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday morning that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Shares of Apple fell more than 2% in premarket trading.
Production of Apple’s flagship phone happens primarily in China, but the country has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S..
Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.
This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Politico previously reported that Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday.
Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
Trump has made public criticisms of other major U.S. companies, including Walmart, during his trade war push, but the levies on a specific consumer product is a new step. The exact legal mechanism for the tariff is unclear.
As Apple is caught in the U.S. president’s crosshairs, the company is also seeing weak demand in China. On Friday the company hiked trade-in incentives for iPhones in China.
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People stand in front of an Apple store in Beijing, China, on April 9, 2025.
Tingshu Wang | Reuters
Apple on Friday raised the amount of money people can get off their next iPhone in China by trading in their old device, rolling out further incentives to spur demand in a crucial market.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max now has a trade-in value of up to 5,700 Chinese yuan ($791), an increase from 5,625 yuan previously. For reference, a brand new iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at 7,999 yuan in China. The iPhone 15 Pro model can now be traded in for up to 4,750 yuan, up from 4,725 prior.
There are also trade-in value increases across other models too.
Apple has looked to offer discounts over the last year, especially around holiday periods in China. While the latest hikes are not huge, they signal Apple’s ongoing desire to galvanize sales in the world’s second largest economy, where it has faced falling market share and declining sales amid tougher competition from local rivals.
In the first quarter of the year, Apple’s China shipments fell 8% year-on-year, while the company’s share of the smartphone market in the country declined from 15% to 13%, according to data from Canalys. Apple also reported this month that sales in its Greater China region, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, fell slightly on an annual basis.
But Apple’s China headache goes beyond sales to questions over its supply chain and products. While U.S. President Donald Trump has paused most tariffs on China for now, there is still an ongoing discussion about whether chips and other electronics may receive a special duty.
Xiaomi, which was the biggest player by market share in China in the first quarter, has meanwhile been ramping up its presence in the high-end device space to directly compete with Apple. On Thursday, the company launched the Xiaomi 15S Pro smartphone that contains an in-house developed chip — something very few companies in the world have managed to do successfully.
Xiaomi has also committed nearly $7 billion to develop more chips over the next 10 years, signaling its ambition to compete with Apple and Huawei.
Though the difference between the two brands’ monthly sales totals is relatively small, the implications of BYD beating out Tesla “are enormous,” says Felipe Munoz, global automotive analyst at JATO Dynamics.
Jaap Arriens | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Despite incurring a higher tariff rate than Tesla, Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD sold more pure battery electric vehicles in Europe for the first time ever last month — a “watershed moment” for the region’s car market, according to a report from JATO Dynamics.
New car registrations data from the automotive intelligence firm shows that BYD’s Europe volumes rose 359% in April from last year as the company continues its global expansion efforts.
Over the same period, Tesla reported yet another monthly drop, with total volumes down 49%, JATO said. That follows protests against CEO Elon Musk and the company in the region. JATO’s data comes from 28 European nations.
BYD’s success in the EU comes despite the economic bloc’s imposition of punitive tariffs on battery EVs made in China last October. The EU attributed the move to unfair trade practices.
The punitive tariffs appeared to be favorable to Tesla, assigning its made-in-China vehicles a 7.8% duty compared with BYD’s 17%. Other Chinese EV makers were given tariffs as high as about 35%. The EU also has a standard 10% car import duty.
Emerging battleground
Felipe Munoz, global automotive analyst at JATO, said the difference between the two EV makers’ April sales was relatively small, but that the implications of BYD beating out Tesla “are enormous.”
JATO added that BYD is also beating well-established European car brands across the region, outselling Fiat and Seat in France, for example.
“This is a watershed moment for Europe’s car market, particularly when you consider that Tesla has led the European BEV market for years, while BYD only officially began operations beyond Norway and the Netherlands in late 2022,” Munoz said.
BYD’s growth comes even before production begins at its new plant in Hungary, which is expected to become the center of European production operations.
“Europe is emerging as a central battleground between BYD and Tesla,” Liz Lee, associate director at technology market research firm Counterpoint Research, told CNBC. She added that the region is expected to experience higher electric vehicle market growth this year than China, which already has high EV penetration.
The tariffs have provided more impetus for Chinese EV makers like BYD to localize manufacturing in the region, according to Lee. Tesla is also reportedly working on plans to expand its manufacturing base in Germany.
JATO’s report said that while tariffs had an initial impact on the sales of Chinese automakers, the companies have mitigated it by expanding and diversifying their European line-ups with the introduction of plug-in hybrids.
“China is not only the world leader in BEVs; its automakers are global leaders in plug-in hybrid vehicles too,” Munoz said.
Battery EVs run entirely on electricity, while hybrid vehicles combine an electric battery with an internal combustion engine. Hybrid vehicles have not yet been targeted by EU tariffs.
Meanwhile, there has been growing demand in the region’s EV segment, with JATO data showing that registrations of battery EVs and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are up by 28% and 31%, respectively, despite declines among internal combustion engine vehicles.
Registrations of all electric vehicles made by Chinese automakers in April rose by 59% year on year, reaching almost 15,300 units in April, the report added.
Ahead of the EU’s tariff decision last year, Rhodium had predicted that tariffs would need to be as high as 55% for the European market to be unattractive for Chinese EV exporters.
In March, it was revealed that Tesla, which only sells pure battery vehicles, fell behind BYD in total annual sales.
Tesla’s shares have fallen over 10% over the same period amid blowback from Musk’s involvement with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. The CEO recently committed to leading Tesla for the next five years.
BYD shares were up 3.9% in Hong Kong trading on Friday and have surged about 78% year to date.
