Facebook expands Messenger lite in 150 countries, launch new features for Indian users

In a bid to provide easy access and minimise data consumption, Facebook on Thursday announced global expansion of its Messenger Lite and now the app will be available to download in 132 more countries with low processing power, memory, and bandwidth.

Additional countries include Germany, Colombia, Italy, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan, and the Netherlands, among others. 

Head of the messenger at Facebook, David Marcus in a post said, "making sure that everyone can have a great experience with Messenger irrespective of the age of their smartphone is very important to us. This is why today we're making Messenger Lite available in 150 additional countries including Germany, Colombia, Italy, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan and the Netherlands."

"So if you have an older phone that doesn't have a lot of memory or has limited processing power, and you want the benefit of messaging quickly with any of the 1.2+ billion people using Messenger every month, give Lite a try," he added further. 

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However, the light version is still not available in US, UK, and India and the app listing on Google Play confirm this by still showing lack of availability in the country.

Meanwhile, the company has launched some new features for India for its 'lite' version. Indian users will now be able to use custom camera effects with greetings like 'Namaste' and 'geo-frames' for cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Goa.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a post said, "Today we're rolling out some new features for India, including Reactions on Facebook Lite. Since we launched Reactions last year, people have used it more than 300 billion times. It’s definitely changed the way I use Facebook and now it’s coming to Facebook Lite. We’re also launching custom camera effects with greetings like ‘Namaste’ and geo-frames for places like Delhi, Mumbai and Goa, so more people will be able to show their friends and family what they’re up to or how they’re feeling."