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Facebook Lite launches in the US and more developed markets
- Facebook Lite is now available in a number of developed countries, including the U.S.
- The app was first launched in 2015 in less developed markets, and is designed to work on slower wireless networks.
- Facebook’s lightweight messaging app, Messenger Lite, launched in the U.S. several months ago.
Facebook has made the decision to expand the reach of its data-friendly app, Facebook Lite, to territories that already have solid wireless networks. Today, the social network revealed that the Facebook Lite app is now available to download in the U.S., along with other developed markets.
Facebook Lite first launched in 2015, and was designed to be used in countries where wireless carriers didn’t have reliable or fast networking hardware. The app itself is less that 1 MB in file size, which makes it easy to download even on slow mobile networks. However, the app still has all of the main Facebook app’s core features, such as its News Feed, along with status updates, photos, notifications and other options.
So why launch Facebook Lite in the U.S.? In a statement from the company that was sent to Reuters, a spokesperson stated that even in this country, some smartphone owners experience lower connectivity from their locations, so it made the app available for those customers. Besides the U.S., Facebook Lite is now also available in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, and New Zealand.
This is not the first time Facebook decided to expand the reach of one of its Lite apps. Messenger Lite, which again was first made for developing territories, launched in the U.S. and other markets in October 2017.