Facebook app for the developing countries reaches 100 million users

Social networking giant Facebook revealed that its streamlined "Facebook for Every Phone" app has eclipsed the 100 million active user benchmark, corresponding to roughly one out of every eight of the social network's mobile users worldwide.

Although high-specification smartphones dominate mobile phone sales in much of the developed world, low-end feature phones are still a common sight in countries like India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Facebook For Every Phone app, which launched in July 2011, provides a way for people with these simpler phones to create a new account, find friends and access the most popular Facebook features, such as News Feed, Messenger and Photos.

Importantly, Facebook For Every Phone is optimised to use less data than other mobile sites, making it more affordable to try and use. Facebook has partnerships with mobile operators around the world to offer free or discounted data access to the app.

"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," said Ran Makavy, Growth Manager at Facebook.

"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."

Facebook is already hugely popular developing countries, but like many other technology giants it has struggled with the shift of its customers from desktop computers to mobile devices, and the effect this has had on advertising revenues.

Although the immediate prospects of making money from feature phone users are modest, Facebook hopes that these users will become more attractive to advertisers as their incomes grow and they gain broader access to the Web.

The company will report its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, but analysts expect that developed markets will be the biggest source of Facebook's revenue and profit for a long time.

"In a lot of foreign markets, people think that the Internet is Facebook," eMarketer analyst Clark Fredricksen told the New York Times.

As of late March, Facebook reported having 751 million customers using accessing their site on mobile devices, up a whopping 54 percent from one year earlier.