By Reuters Staff
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it is testing a new, less data-intensive version of its photo and video sharing app Instagram in India, a key growth market for the U.S. social media giant.
FILE PHOTO: The Instagram application is seen on a phone screen August 3, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/File Photo
The app, Instagram Lite, is less that 2MB in size, which will help it run smoothly on low-memory smartphones and broaden its userbase, the Menlo Park, California-headquartered company said.
The company is relaunching the Lite app after closing down a previous version, which operated chiefly in emerging markets, earlier this year.
With the test of Instagram Lite… were aiming to democratize expression and creativity for a greater number of people in India, Instagram vice-president of product Vishal Shah said at Facebooks first Fuel for India event, where the company showcased its products and services.
Were also hoping to gain valuable insights before a global rollout of Instagram Lite.
India is Facebooks biggest market by users.
Speaking at the event, WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose said the messaging app, which has 400 million users in the country, will look to sell health insurance to users by the end of the year.
Indias flagship payments processor last month gave Facebook much-delayed approval to launch WhatsApp payments in India, but capped the rollout of the service at 20 million users.
The approval is a boost for Facebook which is looking to use payments as a way to widen its base in India, one of the worlds fastest-growing internet services markets.
WhatsApp Pay competes with Alibaba-backed Paytm, Google Pay and Walmart Incs PhonePe in Indias burgeoning fintech market.read more
Facebook to test relaunched Instagram Lite in India – Reuters India
