Canva has achieved a major milestone in the Philippines, with one in every five internet users in the country now using the design platform, according to its local team.
Yani Hornilla-Donato, Canva’s country manager for the Philippines, said in an interview that the Philippines became the first country to hit this global benchmark.
“To contextualize… in 2019, we had around one in 11 internet users. And it has grown rapidly, even with the pandemic happening and all the other changes,” Donato said in an ABS-CBN News report.
She attributed the growth to Canva’s “Truly Local” approach, which included community building and product localization tailored to Filipino online behavior.
“In the early days when we were localizing the product for the Philippines, we did a lot of research and one of the key statistics we found at the time [in] 2019, is that Filipinos spend the most time on the internet globally—nine hours a day online, five hours of those nine hours spent on social media,” she said.
This led to the creation of local Facebook communities for Canva users, including teachers, freelancers, creatives, and entrepreneurs. “All of this interaction with our users allows us to get to know them better… and then shape and develop the product to tie with that,” Donato explained.
To cater to local needs, Canva introduced flexible pricing plans, including one-day and seven-day Canva Pro subscriptions. “You can purchase it [for] seven days or a one-day plan, which is also more suited to a lot of the behaviors and preferences of our Filipino users,” she said.
She added that their partnership with GCash made a significant impact. “Unlocking a partnership with GCash for them to be able to use GCash as a mode of payment has created a lot of traction for us in this space,” Donato said.
Canva now reports over 225 million monthly active users globally, with the Philippines standing out as one of its strongest growth markets—thanks in part to communities like the Facebook group for teachers, which has grown to 150,000 members.
“Word of mouth continues to be a great source of user growth for the Philippines,” Donato added.
