Twitter announces Twitter Lite and new partnership with Vodafone

Twitter has announced a global product from India, Twitter Lite, and  a new partnership with Vodafone in India. Twitter Lite as can be understood from the name, is a more data-friendly version of the micro-blogging site designed for mobile web, and has been developed for markets like India where internet connectivity remains an issue. Twitter Lite is based on the progressive web apps of Google.

''India is instrumental to the growth of Twitter. It is one of the largest growth engines in the world. In India, over 200 million users are on prepaid. There is incredible headroom for growth of digital India, and Twitter in particular,'' The Indian Express quoted Maya Hari, managing director Asia Pacific.

She pointed out that India counted as amongst Twitter's largest audience, and fastest growing in the world, without disclosing the numbers.

 ''We saw close to a million tweets about Diwali in 2016. More than 6 million tweets around the recent state elections,'' pointed out Hari at the launch.

''Twitter Lite looks at emerging markets. The three main pillars on which it resides, which are network conditions, the kind of device being used and how affordable this access is to a user. Twitter Lite wants to address all these questions,'' said Arvinder Gujral, senior director Business Development Asia Pacific for Twitter.

"Twitter Lite is a new mobile web experience accessible to anyone with a smartphone or tablet with a browser, optimized for speed with up to 30-per cent faster launch times, reduces data usage up to 70 per cent with data saver mode turned on, and takes up less than 1MB on mobile devices," said a Twitter India spokesperson.

Also, as it sought to reach more people, Twitter in India had partnered with Vodafone for the T20 season. The company said Vodafone subscribers in India would "receive an SMS alert with a link to the special curated timeline on Twitter Lite where (they) can get live updates on the T20 cricket season".

Twitter Lite offers support for 42 languages including six Indic languages: Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Gujarati, and Marathi.

Even if one were to temporarily lose connectivity, Twitter Lite would offer offline support.