Facebook is entrenching its roots in Africa’s emerging market by re-tooling its app. The Facebook for android app has been tailored to meet the proliferation of android phones in Africa. The company is increasing speed and performance improvements to those with low-end devices and modest internet connections.
The company sent its developers to Africa in order to test how the app works in this environment with low internet connectivity and lower end devices. Issues like data exhaustion, memory issues, slow loading times, and regular crashes which are commonplace in Nigeria occurred.
This trip for the Facebook developers yielded results which include:
Up to 50 percent reduction in initial start time
Up to 50 percent reduction in data used
Up to 90 percent reduction of image failure to load
Up to 65 percent decrease in size of the app on devices
As a result, right now the Facebook android app is less reliant on data as most telecoms companies do not have data plans for android phone users. The app is now smaller in size and has an image compression system because pictures are an essential part of the Facebook experience.
For Facebook, this is a giant stride in terms of coming into the environment to make an app suited for that locality. It is hoped that most companies can imbibe this culture and send their developers into the docks and away from their workstations.
