Facebook Groups eyes a billion, but not revenue

Launched in 2010 and turned into a separate app in November 2014 owing to its success, the Group app allows people follow common interests, hobbies, plan events or trips, and collaborate on projects.

Facebook is looking to engage with more people in India via its app Groups and in turn achieve its goal of connecting with the next billion users, but has no plans to monetise it yet, a senior executive has said.

Adit Vaidya, product manager at Facebook Groups (Facebook)

“Facebook Groups helps people do the most meaningful things in life. We have seen tremendous engagement on the platform. In India, over 70,000 women are members of a group called Mumbai Moms,” Adit Vaidya, product manager of Facebook Groups, told HT.

Launched in 2010 and turned into a separate app in November 2014 owing to its success, the Group app allows people follow common interests, hobbies, plan events or trips, and collaborate on projects.

India has over 80 million active Groups users a month as compared to the global figure of a billion, he said.

But the firm that was founded by Mark Zuckerberg said it had no plans to monetise the app yet. “Although advertisements are the major revenue earner for Facebook, there are still no adverts on Groups as we have no plans for monetisation right now. We are trying to understand the people who create these groups and drive more engagement,” Vaidya said.

He said Indian users were more interested in groups that shared information about parenting, school and education, sports and food. The feature is already live on the iOS app.

Currently, Facebook offers three kinds of group options in terms of privacy -- public, closed and secret. India is Facebooks largest market after the US, with 150 million active users.