Facebook’s Account Kit authentication solution was introduced during the F8 Developers Conference in April this year, and has seen steady growth, claims the company. Facebook’s Account Kit allows a quick sign-in for users from their email address or mobile phone number without the need for a separate password as a separate OTP is generated and sent.
Account Kit compliments Facebook Login, but doesn’t require people to have a Facebook account to login, which is important considering users might not want every app to get access to their Facebook account details.
In a new blog post, Facebook announced that Account Kit’s Phone and Email sign-in Adoption has grown globally. Account Kit has been pitched by Facebook as a solution for app developers looking to build mobile number-based authentication.
Account Kit helps generate a one-time password (OTP) that is sent to a user via SMS. Facebook Login allows for users to sign into an app without having to rely on their their email ID and password, and instead allows the user to sign-in by sharing his/her Facebook details.
According to the post, Facebook claims, “In just a few short months, Account Kit has been implemented by developers across 26 countries and we’re seeing promising conversion rates at up to 90 per cent”.
India-based shopping app ‘Fynd’ claims to have an accelerated growth thanks to Account Kit. “Using Account Kit has significantly increased out number of sign-ups and improved successful sign-ups by over 25 per cent,” said Fynd Co-founder, Farooq Adam in the blogpost.
Facebook in order to improve the user experience of developers has announced simplification of their pricing for SMS confirmation messages. The company will not institute any charges for SMS until August 2018. However standard SMS rates will apply for apps that exceed 1 lakh SMS confirmations per month. The company also announced no Account Kit SMS verification charges for early-stage mobile startups indefinitely.
Facebook also claims to be building authentication features that “rely less heavily” on SMS.