Hajra Naz
Meta is testing a new Facebook experience in India. For some users, the app now opens directly to full-screen video. This puts Reels at the center of the Facebook experience.
Facebook head Tom Alison first outlined the plan in July. The company wants to make Facebook feel more immersive and focused on video. At the time, Alison said Meta would start testing the experience later this year in “video-heavy countries” outside the U.S. He did not name the countries involved.
Meta also has plans to explore the same experience in the U.S. next year. A Meta spokesperson later confirmed that the test is also running in Indonesia.
The new experience is not permanent for users taking part in the test. They can choose to leave it and switch back to the regular feed-first layout. Meta will also keep the traditional feed available as a separate tab inside the Facebook app.
The test is part of a larger push by Meta to make video a bigger part of Facebook. The company has been gradually changing how video works on the platform.
Last year, Meta announced that new videos uploaded to Facebook would be shared as Reels. This applies regardless of the video’s length or format. Meta also changed the name of Facebook’s Video tab to “Reels.”
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The company has already seen strong video usage among younger people. Meta previously said young adults spend around 60% of their time on Facebook watching videos.
India is not a new market for Meta’s video experiments. The company has used the country to test several changes related to short-form video.
Instagram, for example, started testing a dedicated Reels tab in India in 2020. The move came only a few months after India banned TikTok.
Meta has also tested a similar experience on Instagram. Last year, the company tested a Reels-first interface for some users in India and South Korea. Those users were taken directly to the video experience when they opened Instagram.
The latest Facebook test comes at a time when video viewing is growing across Meta’s platforms in India. Figures from meta-commissioned studies show how strong that trend has become.
At least 97% of people surveyed said they watch videos on Meta’s platforms every day. Among Gen Z respondents, 89% said they use Reels daily. Meta released these figures in June.
Meta has also described Reels as increasingly becoming India’s “personal and primary screen.” That reflects the company’s broader focus on short-form video in the country.
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India is also an important market for Facebook because of its huge user base. It is Facebook’s largest market by number of users.
Meta’s advertising tools indicate that Facebook has an audience of more than 400 million people in India. That makes the country a major market for testing changes to the platform.
If the Reels-first Facebook experience performs well in India and other markets, Meta could expand it further. The company has already indicated that it plans to explore the experience in the U.S. next year.
