Launching its India operations, social networking site Facebook said it will tap into the country's huge mobile subscriber base to expand its presence.
The disparity between the population of the country and internet usage prompts Facebook, which has about 15 million active users in India and around 500 million users globally, to adopt a different strategy for the country, Facebook international global marketing manager, Meenal Balar said here.
Facebook today opened an office in Hyderabad, marking the launch of its operations in the country.
Balar said there are a billion people and 600 million mobile phones in India. Normally, people have the web experience and then go to the mobile. In India, people have more mobile experience than the web experience.
"We have a long way to go. We are now focusing on the mobile device experience people in India have to grow. We have been working with several mobile handset makers to provide some compelling applications for our platform.
"We are working with almost all the operators including Aircel, Airtel, Idea,"Balar told reporters after the inauguration of Hyderabad office.
The company currently has operations in three locations and the Hyderabad office is the only facility the company plans to have in India as of now.
"Facebook in Hyderabad will focus on building online operations, supporting users, advertisers and developers around the world. Basically, the team here will work with the users, advertisers and developers.
"The users' questions and those of the developers will be handled by the teams here. For advertisers too, the teams will answer all the questions on making use of the platform in their advertisement campaign," Don Foul, director of global online operations, said.
Currently as much as 70 per cent of Facebook users are from outside of the US and the company has been claiming that the number of users in India has doubled in the last six months.
Foul said from India specific point of view, it is going to be a great platform for all the users and Indian developers who will be working on creating experiences for the users here.
The company officials refused to divulge their hiring strategies, investment plans and revenue expectation from the country.
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