Facebook is going to make new plunge in mobile platform to extend its spectrum. One of the popular social network has finally confirmed that Facebook is acquiring Israeli mobile app start up Snaptu. Snaptu develops smartphone-like mobile applications for the masses that do not have high end handsets. As part of the deal, Facebook will pay Snaptu about $60-$70 million and Snaptu would be working as part of Facebook team.
Snaptu was founded in 2007 and it develops applications for the feature phones. These feature phones are not smartphones but possess mobile Internet connectivity and allow installation of Java ME or BREW based apps. Facebook, along with Snaptu, had launched the new Facebook App for popular features phones that consisted of about 2,500 different models.
Facebook service already has been visible with tighter integration inside the Android OS for many handsets of different companies. The acquisition is expected to close within weeks. The deal marks Facebook’s third acquisition this year, after buying mobile ad company Rel8tion January and Beluga, a group messaging company in March.
With acquisition of Snaptu, we’ll get to see the social network’s deeper integration in feature phones as well. It won’t be surprising to see Facebook centric features phones being launched by year end. In fact, the feature phones segment has large volume of users who don’t wish to or can’t spend a lot on a smartphone.
It’s not new for Facebook to deal with the feature phone segment. Earlier also the company introduced an image-less version of the service that is 0.facebook.com. We can expect that this deal will bring better mobile web experience of Facebook.
