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Business News/ Industry / Infotech/  Facebook launches Lite app for Android users
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Facebook launches Lite app for Android users

The new version uses less data and works well across all network conditions

The social media company, which has a global consumer base of 1.4 billion people, said that India was used as a model for emerging countries to build the new product from scratch. Photo: BloombergPremium
The social media company, which has a global consumer base of 1.4 billion people, said that India was used as a model for emerging countries to build the new product from scratch. Photo: Bloomberg

New Delhi: Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social networking platform, has launched Facebook Lite in India, the company said on Tuesday.

Facebook Lite is a new version of Facebook for Android that uses less data and works well across all network conditions. It was introduced in the first week of June, the company said.

The social media company, which has a global consumer base of 1.4 billion people, said that India was used as a model for emerging countries to build the new product from scratch.

“India was used as a model during the research and development of Facebook Lite. Such a model can be easily replicated in other emerging markets," said Vijay Shankar, product manager for Facebook Lite.

The company started working a year ago on the new offering, which was aimed at helping draw the next billion Facebook users globally.

“More than a billion people around the world access Facebook from a range of mobile devices on varying networks. In many areas, networks can be slow and not able to support all the functionality found in Facebook for Android," he said. “Facebook Lite was built for these situations, giving people a reliable Facebook experience when bandwidth is at a minimum."

There are 874 million mobile phone users who use 2G network around the world. In India, according to the company, 80% of users are using 2G, which it wants to bring on to the platform.

“Our team came to India to do on-the-ground research and we covered, towns and tier 2 and tier 3 cities to find out the challenges the consumers face using the Facebook app," he said.

Challenges included poor connectivity and the quality of devices being used by the masses. “The devices have hardly any storage capacity as well as RAM, which made it hard for people to download the Facebook app," said Shankar.

Facebook Lite takes just 430 KB (kilobytes) of space and consumes less data. While most of the features in its traditional Facebook app and Facebook Lite app are the same, the new product doesn’t support videos and advanced GPS features. It has also tweaked some of the processes including those required to tag people online and replying to a comment in way that consumes less data.

While the application was made specifically to address challenges in India, the second largest market for Facebook with 125 million active users every month after the US, it was initially rolled out in other countries of Asia including Indonesia and Philippines, and in parts of Latin America, Africa and Europe.

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Published: 30 Jun 2015, 09:22 PM IST
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