The industry's massive shift from desktop computing to mobile internet rewarded the companies which adapted quickly. Facebook is reaping its due rewards, according to analysts.
The giant social networking site became a powerful name in the mobile platform, according to industry experts. They did not attribute this growth to the company's infrastructure. Instead, the growth of Facebook was boosted by a cheaper technology. Smartphones and fancy operating systems didn't do if for the company, it was the feature phone.
Largely caused by the powerful emerging markets, feature phone access of Facebook gave the website a 100 million user increase. The market clamored for a specialized "Facebook phone", which first world markets did not approve of. According to a research by Upstream, 1 out of 3 users from emerging markets (such as India and most of Southeast Asia) wanted a feature phone made exclusively by Facebook.
Feature phones are midrange phones which are moderately priced with several features similar to smartphones. It has functions which aren't available to basic phones. Two years ago, almost 60% of all phone users in the United States used feature phones.
Nokia's Asha line is the company's flagship feature phone which sold well on emerging markets such as India, Jordan, and the Philippines.
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