By Tom Mulcahy, Engineering Manager for Messenger Lite

Furthering our goal to empower people all over the world to stay connected, today we’re launching a new app called Messenger Lite, a standalone version of Messenger for Android. Messenger Lite is a slimmed down version of Messenger that offers the core features of Messenger for markets with slower than average internet speeds and a prevalence of basic Android smartphones. With Messenger Lite, people are able to quickly and easily send text, photos and links to anyone using Messenger or Messenger Lite.

More than 1 billion people around the world use Messenger every month from a range of mobile devices on networks of various speeds and reliability. With Messenger Lite, more people can stay in contact, regardless of network conditions or storage limitations on their Android devices. Messenger Lite was built to give people a great Messenger experience, no matter what technology they use or have access to.

Messenger Lite is under 10MB, so it’s fast to install and quick to start up. It includes Messenger’s core experiences such as messaging, sending and receiving photos and links, and receiving stickers. Messenger Lite uses the same bolt logo as Messenger, but with colors reversed. The bolt is blue with a white chat bubble background.

Messenger Lite is starting to roll out to people in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela. Look for Messenger Lite in other countries in the coming months.