When Mark Zuckerberg declared that Facebook is a 'mobile first' company, he wasn't kidding. Facebook is trying hard to be adapt to mobile phones, be it working on faster smartphone apps or focus on mobile advertising. Nearly 66 percent of mobile users in India still use feature phones. As price conscious Indians, we all have used and known the importance of 'missed calls'. Facebook has announced that it is testing a new way to sell advertisements based on 'missed calls' to such feature phone users in India.
When users from India see an ad on Facebook, they will be able to click it and place a 'missed call' from their mobile device. This gives them access to information such as cricket scores, celebrity messages or a message from the advertiser in the form of pre-recorded voice messages. According to Facebook, Garnier used this feature recently and received a strong response.
Even though there are over 100 million Facebook users in India, the revenue generated from these users is considerably low when compared to users in UK, US and Canada. This is Facebook's new strategy to generate more revenue from users in developing countries. If this advertisement strategy pulls off well, Facebook has plans to expand it to other developing nations such as Indonesia, South Africa and Brazil.
