Facebook Lite launched in emerging markets

Facebook Inc's lightweight version of its app called the Facebook Lite -- designed for Android devices -- is now available in Asia. Back in January, Facebook Lite was rolled out in 8 countries for testing purposes. Now that the app is available in Asia, Facebook Inc will follow it will releases to parts of Latin America, Africa and Europe, reported by CNBC.

According to Money Control, Facebook Lite is so designed that it requires less data to run the internet and can even run where connections are slow. Also, users can install the app with less than 1 megabyte of data. In average, apps generally use around 25MB of storage space. With these features, the app greatly enhances Facebook's plan of expanding its user base in the emerging markets where people are still using the 2G bandwidth.

Users will be able to do simple task of posting status updates and photos, receiving notifications, and scrolling through their newsfeeds. However, users will not be able to view videos or use advanced location services as these consume much more data. Facebook is looking to expand its user base in emerging markets as mobile users are growing fast, especially smartphone users with mobile companies offer cheaper handsets.

According to Ericsson, between 2015 and 2020, almost 80 percent of smartphone users added will be from Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. In emerging markets, Indonesia is the third-largest market for mobile Facebook users worldwide. And by the end of 2016, eMarketer predicts India will surpass the US as having the largest population of mobile phone Facebook users.

Facebook's move towards increasing its user base in emerging markets comes after the social media giant's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year announced Facebook Inc's partnership with 6 other tech companies on Internet.org, a platform which seeks to connect to 4.5 billion people to the Internet.