Instagram lite app was launched to tap the market in the developing countries. It has become a new norm for a number of social media platforms to bring a ‘Lite’ version of their app in the market. The main motive behind this move has always been to attract more users from developing countries with low-spec hardware and weak data connection.
Facebook though, has decided to not be a major player in the Lite segment, and has decided to shut the Instagram Lite app, redirecting its existing users to get the flagship version of its app. Interestingly, the folks at Facebook have not revealed the reason as to why. Instagram takes user experience very seriously and sometime back they did a trial to remove like and comments from there main app in various countries.
First launched in 2018 in Mexico, Instagram Lite which is just about 1/55th size of the original Instagram. The company then launched the app in other countries like Peru, Kenya and the Philippines. If reports are to be believed, Instagram Lite was unpublished from the Play Store around 13th of April.
The company said that it will be developing a new version of the Lite app by taking the learning from the now unpublished version. As to when this new Lite version will launch, there was no comment on the same.
If the company does launch a newer version of the Instagram Lite app, it will be in regions like Brazil, India and Indonesia. In fact, Facebook is not the first company to launch the Lite version of apps. Tinder, Uber and even Spotify have launched Lite versions for developing countries in the past.
Even Google is not behind in lightweight applications, and frequently comes up with lighter forms of apps to manage files, watch YouTube videos, access Gmail and more, under its ‘Go’ tag.
While there is no clarity whether Instagram lite will be launched again or not, the current users can use the app’s web version and save on a lot of data consumption.
