Meta tests Reels-first Facebook in India, opening the app into full-screen video

How the test works

Meta has started trialing a redesigned Facebook experience in India that sends a subset of users straight into full-screen video the moment they open the app, according to TechCrunch. Reels becomes the landing screen, while the traditional News Feed is demoted to a second tab within the app. Participants are not locked into the new layout: Meta says they can opt out and return to the familiar feed-first experience.

The plan was first outlined in July by Facebook head Tom Alison, who described it as an attempt to build a more immersive, video-forward product. He said at the time that testing would begin later in the year in what he called "video-heavy countries" outside the United States, without naming them. India is now confirmed as one of those markets, and according to TechCrunch, Meta will explore bringing the experience to American users next year.

The latest step in a video push

The redesign builds on changes Meta has already shipped. Last year the company said all new videos posted to Facebook would be shared as Reels, regardless of their length or format, and it renamed the app's Video tab to "Reels". Meta has also previously stated that young adults spend roughly 60% of their time on Facebook watching videos, which helps explain why the company is reorienting the app around that behavior rather than around status updates and link posts.

Why India is the testing ground

India has repeatedly served as Meta's proving ground for video products, particularly short-form video. In 2020, Instagram began testing a dedicated Reels tab in the country, months after India banned TikTok. Last year, Meta also tested a Reels-first experience for some Instagram users in India and South Korea that similarly launched them directly into the video interface on open. The Facebook trial applies the same idea to a much larger and older product.

The underlying usage data appears to support the bet. According to figures Meta released in June from company-commissioned studies, at least 97% of surveyed users in India say they watch video on Meta's platforms daily, and 89% of Gen Z respondents report using Reels every day. Meta has gone as far as describing Reels as increasingly becoming India's "personal and primary screen".

Scale is the other factor. India is Facebook's largest market by users, with Meta's advertising tools indicating an audience of more than 400 million people in the country, TechCrunch reports. That makes it both the highest-stakes place to experiment and the one where video behavior is most pronounced.

Why it matters

For a large share of Facebook's biggest market, this test would change what the app fundamentally is. The News Feed, the product that defined Facebook for nearly two decades, would no longer be the default destination but a secondary tab users have to navigate to. That is a clear statement about where Meta believes attention is heading: toward short vertical video in the mold of TikTok, and away from the reverse-chronological and algorithmic feeds that made Facebook dominant.

The India-first sequencing also mirrors Meta's established playbook of validating product bets in video-heavy markets before considering a U.S. rollout, as it did with Instagram's Reels tab. The opt-out mechanism suggests the company is hedging: if engagement drops or users push back, the feed can remain the primary experience. But if the test performs, the Facebook people open in the U.S. a year from now may look far more like a dedicated video app than the social network they grew up with.