Skip to main content

Facebook Lite sees some heavy growth one year after launch

facebook lite numbers
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Its full version is already the third most trafficked website online, but Facebook isn’t stopping its quest for world domination at only developed nations. Last year, the social media giant launched Facebook Lite, an app designed to give people a “faster experience on slower mobile networks,” and 12 months later, the app has met with quite a bit of success in a number of countries where high speed internet is a rare commodity.

According to a new study from Similar Web, African countries see the greatest Facebook Lite usage, although the top user is Timor-Leste, located to the east of Indonesia, with Comoros and Madagascar taking the next two spots. In Timor-Leste, a whopping 64.61 percent of all Android users open the app daily, whereas over a third of Comoros and Madagascar residents are regular users of the app.

top-10-by-use-2
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Moreover, in Equatorial Guinea, Comoros, and Timor Leste, users open Facebook Lite more often than they do the regular Facebook app, demonstrating just how prevalent this less data-heavy version is becoming. Indeed, because Facebook Lite purports to work “in all network conditions,” the app has seen considerable penetration in various global markets, with users in South America and Southeast Asia also frequenting this version.

And while users may have been skeptical at first with Facebook Lite, Similar Web’s study shows just how quickly adoption rates increased over the last year. While just 0.5 percent of Android devices in India had the app installed in June 2015, by May of this year, this number had grown over 16-fold, with 8.69 percent of Android users installing the app.

Of course, Facebook Lite hasn’t had as much traction in countries like the U.S., U.K., and Australia, but still, download numbers have increased steadily since the app’s initial launch. In just one year, the app saw an installation growth of 1,200 percent, but even so, only 0.26 percent of U.S. Android devices have downloaded Facebook Lite.

Editors' Recommendations

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
The PS5 is turning a profit for Sony less than a year after launch
Two versions of the PS5 side by side.

With record hardware sales to boast, Sony has announced that the PS5 is no longer selling at a loss, or at least one version of it isn't. The console's more expensive variant, which costs $500 and comes complete with a disk drive, is now generating nothing but profit for Sony according to a report from Bloomberg.

While the physical version of the PS5 is making money for Sony, the same can't be said for the diskless version of the next-gen console. However, according to Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki, the $400 PS5 Digital Edition's costs are being offset by other hardware sales, including continued sales of the PlayStation 4. It's not clear when, or if, the diskless version of the PS5 will begin to return a profit for Sony based on sales alone.

Read more
SpaceX launched a very special mission exactly one year ago
digital trends live episode 443 spacex falcon 9 rocket and crew dragon capsule launches from cape canaveral sending astronaut

It is exactly a year since SpaceX's historic Demo-2 mission that saw crewed launches and landings return to U.S. soil for the first time since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

The mission also marked the first astronaut use of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which carried NASA's Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station for a two-month stay. And that’s not all, as this was also the first time for NASA to use a commercially built and operated American spacecraft for human spaceflight.

Read more
Facebook vs. Facebook Lite: Which is best for you?
galaxy s6

Love it or hate it, Facebook has become an integral part of many people's online lives. One way you might be able to improve your social media experience is to look at Facebook’s Lite app (available for Android and iOS). Both the primary Facebook and Facebook Lite apps offer all the main features of Facebook, but the later version is designed to use less network data and will work well on low-end devices. We look at both applications to see which is best for you in this Facebook versus Facebook Lite battle.
Facebook
 
Facebook Lite

Features
Let’s start with the features of each application. Both Facebook and Facebook Lite offer the social network’s main features; however, Facebook doesn’t address what it considers its main features, so you will need to discover what is missing as you use the app. Our testing found that most primary features were available, including the News Feed, Marketplace, Stories, and Groups. If you’re comparing the two applications, we recommend downloading Facebook Lite and giving it a try for yourself to see if anything you consider vital is missing.

Read more