New Delhi: Social networking website Facebook
today announced a facility for its users to access the site in
eight Indian languages from mobile phones.
This will be rolled out in phases over the next few weeks,
it said.
"With over 50 million people in India on Facebook, we want
to make sure that everyone has a great Facebook mobile
experience regardless of the device that they choose to use,"
Facebook's Country Growth Manager Kevin D'Souza said in a
statement.
With this, Facebook users can access the site by using
'Facebook for Every Phone mobile application' in three
national languages Hindi, Malay and Vietnamese and seven
local Indian languages Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada,
Punjabi, Bengali and Marathi.
Earlier, users could access Facebook only in English. The
application was originally launched in July 2011 and now works
on more than 3600 Java-enabled phones around the world.
India is second largest market for the social networking
website after United States. In March, the company said it is
experiencing rapid revenue growth in markets such as Brazil
and India due to rise in the number of users and increased
sales efforts in those markets.
As on December 31, 2011, Facebook had 46 million monthly
active users (MAUs) in India which was an increase of 132 per
cent from the previous year.
The company currently has more than 800 million monthly
active users and over 350 million mobile users worldwide, the
statement said.
Facebook, which is in the process of coming up with its
Initial Public Offer, recently secured credit deal worth a
whopping USD 8 billion from a consortium of banks.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, April 03, 2012, 17:56