Nokia’s Asha 205 Device Brings Facebook to People in Africa

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is on a quest to connect the next billion people to the Internet, and it has just announced a new step in achieving this goal.

The company’s newly announced Nokia Asha 205 is a device that provides users with access to the Internet, while also enabling them to easily go to social destinations online.

The handset was unveiled with a feature that makes it easy for people to connect to Facebook, namely a dedicated button for the website, which launches Facebook for Every Phone app.

Through this software, users can take advantage of all the great features that the social networking destination has to offer, including messaging, photo sharing, status updates, and the like.

Courtesy of this feature, the mobile phone is expected to prove a great option for users in Africa, where access to Facebook is mainly mobile.

“We can say that in sub-Saharan Africa, Facebook is primarily mobile. We’ve got a country like Nigeria where we have very active users and people who use Facebook every day,” Nicola D’Elia, Africa group manager for Facebook, told Nokia Conversations.

“If we look at the ratio between people who are accessing Facebook via their mobile compared to the total number of people who access Facebook every day in Nigeria, then it’s like 90 per cent.”

Nokia Asha 205 has been designed for young people who are looking for a fast and easy way of accessing Facebook so that they can connect with their friends and families.

Courtesy of these features, the handset should prove a great option for mobile phone users on the continent, since it can provide users exactly with what they want from their devices.

“We want to connect every person in Africa, and on the planet and to work with partners like Nokia to make this happen,” Nicola D’Elia also said.

“It’s undeniable that more people are using the Internet through mobile phones and the networks are improving but I think the speed of this transition to data really depends on how Facebook will work with partners like Nokia.”