Warc, 5 March 2013
BANGALORE: Facebook, the social network, has teamed up with
two of India's leading mobile operators as it seeks to attract new users to its
Facebook Messenger service.
A partnership with Airtel and Reliance Communications will
offer access to their combined 300m subscribers, making it possible for them to
chat for free, within their data usage constraints, rather than paying for text
messages.
"We are reengineering ourselves into a mobile
company," said Kevin D'Souza, country growth manager for Facebook India, adding
that "We have made significant strides from when we first started working
on the platform."
Initial reaction was mixed. "The thing about Facebook
is that users predominantly identify it as a social network, and not as
messaging service," Vikas Saxena, chief executive officer at Nimbuzz, a
free call and messaging app, told The Economic Times.
As a result, he didn't believe that Facebook Messenger
constituted a threat to businesses like his own.
Others were less sure. "Facebook has been trying desperately
to get into the mobile space, so it makes sense that they have tied up with
operators having a large customer base," said Jayanth Kolla, partner at
Convergence Catalyst, a market research firm.
At the end of 2012, Facebook had 71m daily active users in
India. The country also has 860m mobile subscribers, a growing number of whom
have smartphones, so the potential for growth is clear.
Rajan S. Mathews, director-general of the Cellular Operators
Association of India, said the deals were a win-win situation for all the
businesses involved "because Facebook needs to expand its presence while
operators need to identify themselves with appropriate content and
brands."
Data sourced from The Economic Times; additional content by
Warc staff
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