Our New Strategy Is - From Tool To Content

UCweb, an Alibaba mobile business group company recently launched a new version of its uc browser app. the brand is focusing on building and enhancing its user base in India. Priyanka dua met Robert Bu, General Manager, UVweb India, to find out more.

- Priyanka dua

UCWeb has been in India for a while now. What has your experience been like?

India is the biggest overseas market for our flagship product, Uc browser. We established our first overseas headquarters in Gurgaon 5 years ago. As of today, we have reached 80 million monthly active users and have acquired a 50 per cent market share. We believe that the Indian mobile eco system is in a very exciting place at the moment. the biggest change that we have seen in the market is the shift from feature phones to smart phones. With better technology and easy availability, there has been an ever-increasing rise in the demand for smartphones. there is also a rise in the data consumed on the Internet especially mobile internet. trends such as Video calling, Mobile banking, and Mobile Shopping have also caught on in the market, as we know it. According to third party reports, 45 per cent of content consumed in India has been on mobile and the rising data consumption has generated demand for local content and hyper local news. We continue to utilise these opportunities rising in the Indian market and respond to the changing consumer trends.

You are known to people through UC browser. How has it performed in India?

I think the biggest measure of our success if that within five years of our starting operations in India, we are already market leaders. India is our largest overseas market and a key focus area. Nearly half of the page views accessed from India on mobile phones pass through our browser. Uc browser is taking several steps to increase its appeal amongst the user base by offering localized content and services, Uc cricket and Uc News being one of the many offerings. With Uc News, we intend to aggregate local content and offer a single window to the world for content creators as well as to the consumers.