BackAlibaba-owned UCWeb launches UC News portal for India
UC Browser has about 80 million monthly active users in India and UCWeb counts the country as one of its key markets after China
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Bengaluru: UCWeb Inc., owned by the Alibaba Mobile Business Group, on Monday launched UC News, a content aggregation app for India.
The company, whose product UC Browser has about 80 million monthly active users in India, counts the country as one of its key markets after China. UC Browser currently has about 400 million monthly active users worldwide.
The company has shifted focus to being an aggregator as 73% of its users consume news content, at an average of six news pieces per day, according to its internal data. UC News is available for download as a standalone app, and its features will be available on the UC Browser as well.
“We are helping content consumers by providing them all their news in one platform, and at the same time, we are helping content providers by giving them access to this large user base," said Kenny Ye, general manager of UCWeb, Alibaba Mobile Business Group.
The focus is not on monetisation for now, said Ye.
“We want to first grow the users and improve the product. There is a lot of localisation to be done. In the first stage, we are launching with English and Hindi but we plan to launch more languages soon," he added.
UC News is based on recommendations and suggests content according to trending topics on Twitter and Facebook. More than 20 different categories of content including news, cricket, technology, entertainment, movies, lifestyle, health and humour are available on the app. Users can also personalise their own feed and choose what they want to subscribe to.
A number of news aggregators and news reader apps already operate in India, including local companies like NewsHunt and Inshorts, and foreign companies like Flipboard.
“We have two strengths compared to existing players. We have a huge user base and it’s very easy to spread UC News. Second, we have one of the best teams and knowledge from Alibaba," said Ye.
As UC Browser blocks ads by default, UC News could offer a way for publishers to make money off the massive traffic it sees, although specific business models for publisher monetisation are yet to be worked out, apart from driving traffic back to the original sites.
Accessed on Monday, however, most of the articles did not link back to the original sites and did not have ads either. When users click on particular news items, the articles load within the app itself.
UCWeb, whose flagship products include UC Browser and search engine, has become popular in India on the back of UC Browser and its data-friendly technology, which helps smartphone users limit data usage while browsing.
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