Facebook is a global phenomenon. The service has its fans even in countries that don’t have access to particularly great Internet facilities. It was to cater mainly to this section of fans, that the company launched the Facebook lite application back in 2015. Well, Lite has now reached over 200 million users and Facebook is marking the occasion by launching it in several more countries.
The application was launched in June, 2015. It managed to garner its first million users in slightly less than one year, crossing the milestone in March, 2016. The app has continued its growth and has now added another 100 million users to its ranks.
Announcing the news through a post, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said:
We built a light version of Facebook for people with low bandwidth internet. Now 200 million people use it to connect around the world. I loved hearing this news — what a great start to the day.
Facebook Lite is basically a shredded version of the actual Facebook application, that has been created with keeping parts of world with less-than-great Internet connectivity in mind.
The app has a very small download size and can work even on slow Internet speeds. It also uses low amount of bandwidth and doesn’t need Facebook messenger to send or receive messages. The app also consumers less battery however, it also lacks some features. For example videos don’t play on this app.
Judging by its growth curve though, it is clearly a trade-off that users are willing to make.
Meanwhile, the app has been gaining in functionality as well. As COO Sheryl Sandberg notes, the app now supports the management of business pages as well.
In several countries around the world, many people are mobile first or mobile only – and that includes business owners. FB Lite is helping business owners grow and reach customers on mobile even when bandwidth is at a minimum.
Facebook’s efforts towards reaching out to the rest of the world are bearing fruits. As per data, average revenue per user jumped by 28% from $1.10 to reach $1.41 this year.
The growth was reflected in Facebook’s rest of world revenue as well. Revenue marked a hike of 52% to reach almost $839 million per quarter. Which is a surprisingly good amount and is significantly more than what many other established applications and platforms make — simply because they don’t specifically cater to places with weaker Internet connectivity like Facebook does.
The app is now launching to several new countries as well, including Israel, Italy, United Arab Emirates, and South Korea.
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