Reliance Jio's free data offer and subsequent moves by competitors to reduce data charges look to have had a dramatic impact on Facebook usage in India. The impact was so much that it took Facebook's global monthly active user (MAU) numbers to record highs.
In its December-quarter earnings call with investors on Wednesday, the social media giant said the quarter was a "fantastic" one for the "overall growth of the Facebook community." The quarter witnessed Facebook's "strongest absolute MAU and DAU (daily active user) additions year-over-year since being a public company", CFO David Wehner said.
In response to a question on where the increases came from, Wehner singled out India and said "India was our strongest growth market." He indicated much of that increase came on account of "third party promotional free data plans."
Asia saw a sequential growth in Facebook MAUs of more than 44 million in the quarter, said to be the biggest increase ever.
Wehner added that Facebook Lite for Android has also helped the social networking major to expand its usage and reach in emerging economies including India. Facebook Lite is a light app that allows for faster downloads on cheaper Android phones.
Facebook has its largest user base in India with around 195 million accounts, according to Statista, a data collecting platform. The US comes second with 191 million users. Other emerging economies like Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico follow.
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