January 26, 2015
Smartphones aren’t cheap acquisition most of the time, but producers made also devices which can fulfill some expectations, especially regarding Internet, but also at low prices. It is the case of places around the world where people are poorer. It is the case of Africa and Asia for example. Of course, such devices aren’t eligible for 3G or 4G networks also because there aren’t such networks in those regions. Still, the population uses those low cost devices as primary tools for Internet, even though we are speaking about 2G connections.
Eight countries are targeted
Facebook took advantage of this and launched a new application for that kind of smartphones, called Facebook Lite. It looks like a simplified version of its mobile website from 2009 and 2010 and it is aimed for Android OS operating on such devices in eight countries, which are: Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zimbabwe to be precise. The application only have 252 KB but looks like being very well receive by people from this states if we consider that more than 10,000 downloads end up until this moment.
This is how Facebook tries to keep up and even develop in continuously increasing markets from Africa and Pacific Asia when it comes about cheap smartphones. I mean those under 30 dollars devices which more and more people afford right now to do their thing on the Internet.