Reddit opens in Australia

Reddit is setting up shop in Australia with digital platform expert David Ray at the helm.

The social-networking company and online community has opened an office in Barangaroo, Sydney staffed by locally based community, engineering and sales staff.

The office will be helmed by Ray, who will join as country manager in "the coming weeks", the company said. Ray will move from WooliesX, where he has been responsible for creating customer experiences across Woolworths’ online properties for less than year. Prior to WooliesX, Ray was country head for Amazon Music, director of audiences & growth for Twitter Australia, and managed digital media divisions for Telstra and Fairfax Digital.

The Australian business will be managed by Reddit’s head of international, Tariq Mahmoud.

Reddit said Australia is "core" to its international growth strategy, home to its fourth-largest user base and growing at 40% year-over-year, it claimed.

"We’ve been fortunate to experience strong organic growth from our Australian user base in recent years, and with this comes a significant opportunity to level-up our local offering in a more focussed and nuanced way," said chief operating officer Jen Wong.

The platform is seeking to attract local brands to advertise on its Reddit Ads platform.

Reddit claimed that its Australian users spend an average of 31 minutes per day on the platform and they collectively contribute 158 million posts, comments and votes on the platform every month. It added that nearly two-thirds (62%) of its users sit within the 18-34-year old segment, with 28% aged between 35-49 years old.

User activity mimics global trends with gaming, crypto and entertainment among the most popular interest groups. The most popular subreddits in Australia include the cultural r/australia community, finance-related r/ausfinance and r/asx_bets, and sports-related r/afl and r/nrl.

The entrance into Australia follows Reddit's opening in Canada in March 2021 and the UK in September 2020.