Facebook Lite reaches 100 million monthly users

Users with limited phone specs could opt to use Facebook in a stripped down version—Lite, now its fastest growing app.

Facebook released the Lite in June last year, and since then it has steadily been downloaded by users more than its standard app. It has already reached a milestone of having 100 million users monthly.

“It's the fastest-growing version of Facebook to reach 100 million users in under nine months,” Facebook software engineer Gautam Roy said in a blog post.

Compared to the standard app, Lite is more data-efficient.

It compensates for its lack of functionality. The app only takes up less than 1MB of storage.

Lite can be used on 2G networks and areas with slow or unstable connections —no wonder why the Philippines is one where the Lite is used and downloaded the most.

Other countries with most downloads include Brazil, India, Indonesia and Mexico.

“We know that cost of data and overall data usage is extremely important to people, so we’ve been working to reduce data usage for people in emerging markets when they want to access Facebook,” Roy said.

Also, Lite works on almost all Android versions.

Phones with limited and restrictive specs could still run the app because of its ability to stay within the range of the data it should use for a seamless performance.

Users on Facebook give it an average of 4.2 stars.

To date, Lite has been rolled out in more than 150 countries and is available in 56 languages. —Kiersnerr Gerwin Tacadena/KG, GMA News