Snapchat’s ‘Anime Style’ augmented reality lens has gained massive popularity since its launch, the company confirmed on Tuesday.

The AR lens lets users turn people into anime characters. The lens was used over three billion times in the first week of its launch, the company said.

“Our ‘Anime Style’ Lens powered by real-time machine learning was engaged with three billion times in its first week,” Snap said in an official release.

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Evan Spiegel, Snap’s Chief Executive Officer, said at the Q3 2020 earnings call on Tuesday that the company is continuing to invest in its camera and AR platforms as part of its growth strategy, citing the anime lens as an example.

“We have continued to invest in the technology that underlies our AR platform to empower new experiences for our community,” he said.

“We drew on several years of technical investment and creative experience to launch a number of extremely popular lenses this quarter. For example, our recently launched anime lens uses our Snap ML technology to turn people into anime characters in real time and our community engaged with this lens three billion times in its first week,” he said.

Snapchat has witnessed an 18 per cent year-over-year increase in the number of daily active users this quarter, at 249 million.

As of the end of Q3 2020, over 1.5 million lenses have been created by the Snapchat community through Lens Studio, the company said.

Snap’s revenue has increased by 52 per cent year-over-year to $679 million.

The growth in revenue is driven by its investments in AR and the Discover platform along with more advertising partnerships, among other factors as per an official release.

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