Facebook For Every Phone is powered by technology created by Snaptu. (Photo source: Facebook)
“Facebook for Every Phone” feature phone app now has more than 100 million active monthly users each month, claims the social networking giant.
“This is an important milestone for us. Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected, and Facebook For Every Phone enables people around the globe to connect to the people and things they care about most, no matter what kind of mobile device they use,” wrote Facebook Growth Manager, Ran Makavy, in a blog post.
Makavy says that 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.
Though he didn’t break down its numbers specifically by country/region, in relative terms, Facebook has over 1.1 billion monthly active users, meaning that roughly one in every ten people that use the site at any point each month, do so from a feature phone.
Ultimately, Facebook for Every Phone is a fast and easy-to-use native app that works on more than 3,000 different types of feature phones from almost every handset manufacturer that exists today. These devices can cost as little as $20 US dollars.
The app is a comprehensive Facebook experience and feels more like a smartphone app. It includes Facebook’s most popular features, such as News Feed, Messenger and Photos, and provides a complete experience for first-time users, including the ability to create a new account and find friends.
This experience is optimized to use less data than other Java apps and mobile sites, making it more affordable to try and use. We also have partnerships with mobile operators around the world to offer free or discounted data access to Facebook For Every Phone.
Facebook For Every Phone is powered by technology created by Snaptu, an Israel-based mobile platform that joined Facebook in California as part of an acquisition in 2011. That small team relaunched Snaptu as Facebook For Every Phone in August of that same year, and grew the user base to where it is today. Snaptu’s platform uses the power of servers to accelerate and optimize the way mobile apps work, and is the key to providing a great user experience on low-end devices.
In just two years, Facebook For Every Phone has successfully put Facebook into the hands of millions of people around the world with limited access to the Internet, giving them the power to connect and share.
