Flipkart, Facebook team up to make apps lighter for slow networks
NEW DELHI: Flipkart said it is working with Facebook to ensure that users of their apps and websites on slower networks and low-cost smartphones don't get bogged down by buffering or the need for updates.
"I am working with Facebook to converge our solution — which allows users to skip updates to apps — and there is a platform called React Native to see if we can share each other's learnings and make one unified product for the developer community to leverage," said Amar Nagaram, vice president of engineering at Flipkart.
Nagaram said developers from both companies are working on the project via open source.
"The whole idea was to make the site work on low networks, which means consuming low data, without compromising the experience," he said.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a query on the matter.
About 30% of India's over 1 billion mobile phone subscribers use smartphones and a lower number uses data to access the internet on their devices. For more than 220 million mobile internet users in the country, the need for high quality data network connectivity is a leading demand and among the top challenges that telcos face.
Given the low average revenue per user of under `200 in the country, the situation becomes a bigger challenge for apps that require frequent updates, which means users must consume data to get the latest version.
About half of Flipkart's 100 million registered app users, as of September 2016, visit the mobile site. At least 70 million who do not have the app use Flipkart Lite, mostly on sub-$100 devices that work on 2G networks.
The company has developed a twofold strategy where it pushes its app to users of high-end smartphones and offers an app-like experience to those using low-cost smartphones without requiring them to download the app.
Flipkart's app has been built with inhouse technology, which has helped the company to reduce the number of updates to a third since June 2016.
The company wants to increase the number of users who access the site on the web, improving its Flipkart Lite mobile site, which doesn't use too much data. Nagarajan said the two ways will eventually converge, a concept that its other partner Google is also working on.
"I am working with Facebook to converge our solution — which allows users to skip updates to apps — and there is a platform called React Native to see if we can share each other's learnings and make one unified product for the developer community to leverage," said Amar Nagaram, vice president of engineering at Flipkart.
Nagaram said developers from both companies are working on the project via open source.
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"The whole idea was to make the site work on low networks, which means consuming low data, without compromising the experience," he said.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a query on the matter.
About 30% of India's over 1 billion mobile phone subscribers use smartphones and a lower number uses data to access the internet on their devices. For more than 220 million mobile internet users in the country, the need for high quality data network connectivity is a leading demand and among the top challenges that telcos face.
Given the low average revenue per user of under `200 in the country, the situation becomes a bigger challenge for apps that require frequent updates, which means users must consume data to get the latest version.
About half of Flipkart's 100 million registered app users, as of September 2016, visit the mobile site. At least 70 million who do not have the app use Flipkart Lite, mostly on sub-$100 devices that work on 2G networks.
The company has developed a twofold strategy where it pushes its app to users of high-end smartphones and offers an app-like experience to those using low-cost smartphones without requiring them to download the app.
Flipkart's app has been built with inhouse technology, which has helped the company to reduce the number of updates to a third since June 2016.
The company wants to increase the number of users who access the site on the web, improving its Flipkart Lite mobile site, which doesn't use too much data. Nagarajan said the two ways will eventually converge, a concept that its other partner Google is also working on.
