Facebook's Internet.org offering is spreading across the African continent, with Kenya being the latest country to get access to the app, which offers free Internet.
Kenya is the third African country to benefit from a partnership that aims to make affordable Internet access available to the two-thirds of the world not yet connected - after Tanzania (in partnership with Tigo) and Zambia (in conjunction with Airtel).
Bharti Airtel (Airtel), a telecoms services provider with more than 300 million customers in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today said it would offer the Internet.org app to its prepaid and post-paid customers in Kenya, beginning later this week.
Facebook's Internet.org app provides a set of locally relevant basic Internet services free of charge in order to make it easier for people to access the Internet.
Airtel Kenya CEO Adil El Youssefi says the partnership comes in response to the needs of its young customers "who are in constant need to access the Internet".
He adds: "Through Facebook's Internet.org app, Airtel customers using mobile Internet-capable devices will now be able to access a set of free services in categories such as health, education, sports, jobs, and local information. This demonstrates Africa's increasing relevance and contribution to the global innovation map."
Chris Daniels, VP of product for Internet.org at Facebook, says the app has seen "great success" in Zambia. "We can make a big impact by making the Internet accessible through this set of free basic services, which we hope will ultimately lead to more people coming online."
The Internet.org app in Kenya will give Airtel customers free access to AccuWeather, BBC News, BBC Swahili, BabyCenter & MAMA, BrighterMonday, Daily Nation, Ebola Information, Facebook, Facts for Life, Girl Effect, Jamii Forums, Messenger, OLX, Scholars4Dev, SuperSport, Toto Health, Wattpad and Wikipedia.
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