Facebook’s Messenger Lite is now available in over 100 more countries, including Colombia, Italy, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan and the Netherlands.

“Making sure that everyone can have a great experience with Messenger irrespective of the age of their smartphone is very important to us,” David Marcus announced in a Facebook post, adding: “if you have an older phone that doesn’t have a lot of memory, or has limited processing power, and you want the benefit of messaging quickly…give Lite a try”.

The app was launched in October, targeting markets with slower than average internet speeds and a prevalence of basic Android smartphones. Initial rollouts took place in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela.

In February, the company announced the lite version of its core app hit 200 million users.

The policy of targeting emerging markets is in direct contrast with rival Snapchat, which recently faced a backlash after an ex-employee claimed founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said he does not want to focus on expanding the app in “poor” countries like India and Spain.

While parent Snap rubbished reports about Spiegel’s comments, in its IPO regulatory filing it did say 60 per cent of its users are based in the world’s top ten advertising markets.