Flipkart working with Facebook to make its mobile app, website lighter

After partnering Microsoft to adopt Azure as its exclusive cloud services, Flipkart reportedly is now partnering with Facebook to provide better mobile app and website experience on budget phones and low connectivity scenarios.

In a bid to make its app Flipkart Lite available in the 2G network for rural areas, Flipkart is not only cutting down the application size but also looking to slash the number of regular updates to apps.

Flipkart Lite, launched in 2015, attracts over half of Flipkart’s 100 million registered app users visit the mobile site regularly, according to company's September’s data. And out of 100 million users, 70 million of the user base visits are happening from budget phones, running 2G networks.

Flipkart is currently testing with Facebook’s React Native framework, which allows developers to build a mobile UI, using JavaScript.

Amar Nagaram, vice president of engineering at Flipkart, told Economics Times, "I am working with Facebook to converge our solution — which allows users to skip updates to apps — and there is a platform called React Native to see if we can share each other's learnings and make one unified product for the developer community to leverage."

The company wants to offer an app-like experience on low-cost phones without requiring them to download the app and hence looking to improve its mobile site, which doesn't use too much data.

The company recently added Microsoft cloud support, to simplify operations and also providing its users with an even enriched experience.