Facebook will tie up with India’s largest mobile operator Airtel

The mega announcement was made at the Mobile World Congress last week that Facebook will tie up with India’s largest mobile operator Airtel, to offer free or discounted data access to Airtel’s 300 million subscribers for using the Facebook Messenger service.

With approximately 860 million mobile subscribers and also a fast growing smartphone user community, India indeed does represent a large opportunity for Facebook, who themselves have around billion users worldwide. Facebook’s decision reflects that it is trying to gain a strong footing in the mobile phone arena.

Facebook has always considered this space as its top priority. Facebook will now take on Blackberry Messenger, WhatsApp, Nimbuzz and Hike. Kevin D’Souza said that Facebook understands that in India mobile phones will be the first window of Internet access for millions; hence the company is reengineering themselves into a mobile company. HE also stated that the company has made major improvements from the time it started working on the platform. This messenger will integrate the user’s Facebook and phone contact lists and will make it possible for the user to chat with friends instead of messaging them, which are payable. Due to the tie up between Airtel and Facebook, the data usage for the chat would be either at a discounted rate or else completely free.

Though as per Vikas Saxena, the CEO of Nimbuzz, Facebook is still considered as a social network and not a messaging service, so it will not be threat to companies like Nimbuzz or WhatsApp. That’s not all; the tie up has brought in a new angle in the ongoing debate, about the relationship between mobile carriers and content providers. The carriers always feel that while they are the ones to invest in the infrastructure to support the data traffic, they are the losers in getting a share of advertising revenues.