#2 India as place of new challenges

Targeting users: 

The country has about 100 million internet users now, mostly via PCs, and about 900 plus mobile users, defiantly a tempting opportunity for company to target this area.

The problem is that only 9 percent of the urban Indian have Smartphones, according to Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights, and Facebook must cater to millions of Indians coming online for the first time on low-tech mobile. The internet buzz in rural areas is minuscule.

Adding to it, the networks provide spotty cell services. Many apps from Facebook to other, will have to work in this environment. The marketers still see social-media advertising as a fringe, experimental activity.

Kirthiga Reddy, head of country operations and the first employee of Facebook, said WSJ that the company is investing significantly to target lower-end feature phones and added support for Hindi and other seven major languages. Reddy added that the firm is just early in the journey and yet got a lot of people to reach in a country of 1.2 billion people.     

The lessons learnt here can be applied in other emerging markets like Indonesia, Brazil, and some parts of Africa as said by FB executives. "As we think about how to deliver the best possible Facebook experience to an emerging-market customer, India is probably the best place to incubate and experiment on different ways we can deliver that experience," said Meenal Balar, Facebook's director for international growth.

FB has said relatively little about its India approach. However in interviews, executives at the company described the company’s strategy about building Facebook for those who don’t have Smartphones, and establishing ties with mobile-phone operators, advertisers, and other partners who provide content like fashion, music and many more.