Twitter Lite launched in India

Twitter today launched a lighter version of its platform -- Twitter Lite -- in India.

New Delhi: Twitter on Thursday launched a faster version of its mobile service --Twitter Lite, aimed at people with sporadic connections or little data on their smartphone plans.

It will be available in 42 languages, including six Indian languages (Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati and Marathi).

Twitter Lite works through a web browser, not a stand-alone phone application, but its appearance and functionality are nearly identical to what app users experience.

The company estimates that, with several changes it is making to its mobile website, mobile.twitter.com, users will see their average data consumption on the browser version go down 40 percent.

Twitter is eyeing India`s 1.3 billion people, and it timed the release of Twitter Lite in part to coincide with the start this week of a major cricket event there, the Indian Premier League`s Twenty20 tournament.

Twitter has also partnered Vodafone to provide a customised timeline of top cricket related tweets via Twitter Lite to the telecom major's 200 million subscribers throughout the T20 season.

The browser-based product, which will also be rolled out in countries like Indonesia and Philippines soon, uses 70 per cent less data and loads 30 per cent faster compared to the app.