NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Facebook introduced a stripped-down version of the social photo-sharing app Instagram, aimed at users in developing markets.

Instagram Lite quietly appeared on the Google Play Store Wednesday for Android smartphones and the size of the app is just 574 kilobytes, substantially smaller than the roughly 90 megabytes required for the main Instagram app.

The Lite app lets you post pictures, create and watch stories that disappear after 24 hours, and search for users. Users currently don’t have the option to message friends or share videos, but a description on Google’s app store said that those functions are coming soon.

Instagram Lite is aimed at emerging markets which typically are dominated by lower cost Android devices. Users in these countries have limited data plans and that’s where Lite versions of apps become important.

Photo courtesy of Highways England.