Twitter testing data-friendly 'Lite' version of its app

Twitter has started testing the Lite version of its Android app that’s aimed at emerging markets. As confirmed to TechCrunch, Twitter Lite is currently only available in the Philippines, with the company still evaluating whether or not to release it in other markets in the near future.

The Philippines market has slow mobile networks and expensive data plans, while mobile devices with limited storage are still very popular there. Twitter Lite helps to overcome these barriers to usage for Twitter in the Philippines. — a Twitter spokesperson

Twitter Lite has a lot of the same features as the standard version of the app, allowing you to share your opinion with the world, check breaking news as well as sports scores. However, the company claims that it launches up to 30 percent faster, is smaller than 1 MB, and can use up to 70 percent less data.

This is because it comes with a few nifty features including media-free mode, which allows you to see a preview of images and videos and lets you choose which ones you want to download.

Twitter has 68 million users in the US and 260 million in other countries around the world. A lot of them come from emerging markets, which is why it makes sense for the company to release a Lite version of the app. This might help the company grow its user base, which is something it has been struggling with for a while now.