Can UC Web capitalize on competition with the new UC News App and UC Browser?

UC Web, an Alibaba Mobile Business Group company and a provider of mobile internet software technology and services, has recently increased the focus on India marketing by adding a number of features to their mobile web browser.

In the new version of the app, the company claims that it has added quite a few interesting features such as UC news exclusively for the Indian market. It further claims that UC News is powered with big data to provide trending data and curated news content from all major categories that interest Indian users. The company has focused on providing localized content in many Indian languages.

According to the data provided by the company, there are 80 million active users of UC Browser in India and it constitutes 20% of the user-base. If the company is to be believed, the new UC Browser is an improved and upgraded structure remodeled as a content aggregator. It is one of the most used web browsers in India with over 58% market share as of May 2016, says the company. UC Browser boasts to offer users a fast, all-in one web experience. It is available in more than 3000 different models of mobile.

The company has tried to strategically shift from an app or a mobile-based tool to a content aggregator. The browser data shows that the Indian users consume 6 pieces of news per day. Kenny Ye, General Manager of UCWeb, Alibaba Mobile Business Group, in his press address said, " Digital content consumption is on the rise and the challenge is how we can customize, curate and present diverse content to users. Content providers face difficulties in distributing content of different formats, while consumers are swamped by an information overload. Our answer to these challenges is to position ourselves as a content aggregator. The newly launched UC News and upgraded UC Browser for India are two contemporary products embedded with the aim of content aggregation."

"India is a very important market for us. Globally, it already has the second largest Internet userbase and for us too, it is the largest userbase outside of China. It is about 20 per cent of our 400 million global userbase," Alibaba Mobile Business Group (MBG) General Manager UCWeb Kenny Ye told PTI.

UCWeb has launched 'UC News', a platform that brings together both traditional and new media content from over 20 featured channels which includes news, technology, entertainment, cricket, movies, lifestyle, humour, health, etc. It is easy to use app and features highly user friendly interface.

UC News also matches the trending keywords on Facebook and Twitter and decides the topics before recommending to the user. Users can also customize their content and let them choose any kind of content they want to read.