Pinterest announced a full, global roll-out of its Lite app for Android devices
After first launching its revamped, data-friendly 'Pinterest Lite' app in certain regions in October last year, Pinterest has this week announced a full, global roll-out of its Lite app for Android devices, which will enable more people to log onto the rising platform.
As explained by Pinterest:
"We recently began launching Pinterest Lite for Android to people in Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico. Today we’re expanding the availability of Pinterest Lite and launching it globally. Pinterest Lite offers most of the features of the Pinterest app, while taking up less space on your device, and can download more quickly in places with slower internet connection."
Pinterest launched the first iteration of its Lite app some years back, but then shut it down in 2018 as part of a broader revamp of its mobile application. This new version is built on the same infrastructure as its main app, which better aligns the platform's offerings, ensuring a more uniform experience across the app variants.
The focus on emerging markets makes sense for Pinterest. As the company reported earlier this month, while its US audience increased by 8% to 88 million monthly active users in 2019, its international MAUs jumped 35% YoY.
Pinterest is particularly popular in European markets, with growing user bases in the UK, Germany, France and Italy, but it's also been making specific moves to boost platform usage in India and South-East Asian regions. Android is the most popular operating system in Asia, and providing a more data-friendly app variant will help the platform increase its global footprint, and gain traction in these rising markets.
And as you can see from the above chart, Pinterest is indeed gaining momentum. Over the past year, Pinterest's 26% overall user growth rate outpaces Snapchat's DAU count, Twitter's mDAU numbers, LinkedIn's member growth and even Facebook's MAU figures.
It's not as big as all of those platforms, overall, but the numbers underline Pinterest's rising relevance, and use case, which could see the platform become a bigger consideration for more businesses over time.
Adding a lite app is a logical extension here. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have their own lite variants of their apps, enabling them to provide access to more regions, and branch into emerging markets.
Of course, emerging markets are not as lucrative, in a monetization sense, but by building a presence, these apps stand to benefit as usage behaviors evolve - and with all the big players putting big focus on the economic benefits of social connectivity in these regions, Pinterest is smart to look to tap into the same.
Pinterest Lite is available in the Play store globally, and is launching for Arabic speakers soon.
