Facebook For Every Phone app passes 100 million mark

Facebook For Every Phone app passes 100 million mark

PanARMENIAN.Net - Facebook announced Sunday, July 21, that its “Facebook For Every Phone” app, a service that works on more than 3,000 such phones, has reached a new milestone with more than 100 million monthly users, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“Today, millions of people in developing markets like India, Indonesia and the Philippines are relying on this technology to connect with Facebook, without having to purchase a smartphone,” Ran Makavy, a Facebook growth manager, said in a company blog post.

The announcement was a reminder, ahead of Facebook’s coming earnings report, that Facebook has not forgotten emerging markets as it tries to become (in its own words) a “mobile best” company.

While the bulk of its mobile announcements and engineering talent have focused on smartphones on Apple and Google’s operating systems, many of Facebook’s users don’t have access to expensive mobile devices. Instead, many people sign-on to Facebook by buying minutes in Internet cafes or on cheap feature phones, particularly in emerging markets.

According to an IDC report earlier this year, the first quarter of 2013 was the first time that smartphone shipments outnumbered feature phone shipments.

Facebook for Every Phone is a two-year-old project born out of the acquisition of Snaptu, an Israeli mobile platform co-founded by Makavy. Despite the limitations of feature phones, the app allows users to check their news feed, send messages and upload photos. It is also designed to minimize data usage to make it more affordable for people to use.

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