Facebook Messenger Lite, a stand-alone version of Messenger for Android for markets with slower than average internet speeds is now available in over 132 countries including Vietnam, Nigeria, Peru, Turkey, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands.
Messenger Lite was rolled out in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela last October.
"For Facebook, which has in months aggressively added Snapchat-like features to its main app, Instagram, and Messenger, the expansion of its Lite versions gives it another advantage over its rival," technology website theverge.com reported on Friday.
As of now neither Facebook Lite nor Messenger Lite have augmented reality and camera effect features that Facebook's main apps have, but it is only a matter of time as the company earlier this week announced the addition of reactions, geofilters, and other subtle camera effects to Facebook Lite.
These feature can land on Messenger Lite soon.
Messenger Lite is under 10MB, includes Messenger's core experiences such as messaging, sending and receiving photos and links and receiving stickers.
Earlier this week, Facebook also announced several custom effects for India for people to create and share photos and videos that showcase the expression of 'Namaste' as well as capture geo-specific experiences in Delhi, Mumbai, Goa and other places.
The company said that Facebook Lite counts India as one of the top countries and it would continue to make improvements to similar products.
The social media giant also announced that it will roll out Reactions, including "Love", "Haha", "Wow", "Sad" and "Angry" -- an extension of the Like button -- on Facebook Lite later this month.
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