Facebook is offering mobile users the Indian rupee equivalent of nearly US$1 in free talk time to sign up to the social networking service, in a bid to increase its subscribers in the country.
Under the scheme, users have to go to m.facebook.com/tt and register to get the free talktime.
This offer is only for new sign ups and is not available to existing users. However, users can refer others to join Facebook and will receive Rs 50 if they join.
India had 908 million mobile subscribers at the end of August, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. About 63 percent of these are urban subscribers who are using Internet services including accessing social networks like Facebook and Twitter on their mobile phones.
Facebook ranks third after Google’s international search web site google.com and the India version in a monthly ranking of the top websites in the country by web information company Alexa. The rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past month.
Facebook said in a regulatory filing in July that it had 59 million monthly average users in India as of June 30, 2012, an increase of 84 percent compared to the same period in 2011.