UCWeb is interested in partnering with media organizations to increase its market share in the competitive world
The search engine division and web browser of Alibaba are looking to boost global growth by establishing new alliances with media service providers across the globe. The move follows its UC browser reaching a landmark of recording over 400 million monthly active users worldwide, which has added to its lead over Safari of Apple as the second-most famous browser of the world, revealed by the presentation of UCWeb at the annual Global Mobile Internet Conference held in Beijing on April 28, 2016.
Alibaba’s president of the mobile business division and UCWeb’s co-founder Yu Yongfu said the planned media partnership would turn the UC mobile browser into a new media network that proves to be beneficial for users with custom-made news feeds, whereas helping media companies add readership.
Yu said media organizations would have “content stores” on the UC browser in the same manner as online sellers have shops on Alibaba’s business-to-consumer online ecommerce platform. Media partners of UCWeb will be able to also include ads in the content showed inside, the customized news feed of UC Headline, which uses “big data” gathered across the products of the search unit to personalize content.
The tech feature is presently live for Chinese users and will be offered to global users in the upcoming month. The company has already tied up content partnership agreements with China Business News, online platform ‘Sina’ and the Chinese internet tech company ‘NetEase’. The media partnership tie-up will probably expand market share for UCWeb, which is currently dominating the mobile browser industry in China.
The Guangzhou-based company presently controls over half of the Indonesian and Indian markets for mobile browsers. It works on both Android and Apple iOS, and is offered in a dozen languages, including Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Hindi, English and Chinese. 9Apps helped UCWeb grow in the tech world.
9Apps is the global online marketplace of Alibaba for mobile apps. UC Headline news feed Chinese users generate over 570 million news views monthly, the company told. The marketplace website ‘Taobao’ shows a personalized front page for every user that includes tailor-made product recommendations depending on their search and purchase history.
Analyst at IDC Chua Chwee Kan said the new functionality in the browser capitalized on mobile application fatigue – a terminology named by pundits to give a description of the overcrowded application scenario, in which new applications keep emerging but don’t offer sufficient value for customers to continue using them.
Kan stated the data gathered by the search unit would be also useful for the cloud computation Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) of Alibaba since it was able to keep a track of interests and user preference based on interactions with the news feed and browsing habits.
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