Twitter Lite app launches in 24 more countries

Twitter Lite, the space-saving version of Twitter's main app, is ready for prime time after about two months of ground testing in the Philippines.

The social network announced on Friday it's releasing Twitter Lite to Android's Google Play store in 24 countries, mostly in emerging markets across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.

The app is meant to take up a tiny bit of space on phones, at about 3MB, and -- importantly for places with patchy coverage -- support offline usage via caching.

It'll also allow users to choose which pictures or videos to download in their stream, so they don't waste data auto-downloading everything.

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Twitter first announced Twitter Lite as a progressive web app in April (at mobile.twitter.com), but this proper roll out to the Google Play store ought to make its app more sticky, compared with making users go to a webpage.

Twitter's monthly user base has edged upwards to 330 million in the third quarter of 2017, although the growth rate has flattened considerably in the past two years.

Grabbing new Android users in emerging markets is a good way of spiking that growth again.

Where it's hitting:

Asia: Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nepal, Thailand

Africa: Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Tanzania

Europe: Algeria

Middle East: Egypt, Israel, Serbia,

Latin America: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, El Salvador, Venezuela