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Almost Half Of The Indian Smartphone Users Use UCWeb Browser

UCWeb builds a content partnership with Colors channel.
UCWeb

Chinese browser company UCWeb launched the new version of their browser in India with exclusive content from Colors TV.

The Alibaba subsidiary claims to be the biggest browser brand in the country with over 80 million Monthly Active Users. Even StatCounter suggests that 48% of the mobile and tablet users in India use UCWeb Browser. The second most popular browser is Chrome at 20% of the share.

The new UC browser is now integrated with UC News which was launched as an app earlier this year. UC News' target is to provide relevant news to the users based on their interest. Users can select a few tags to get started and see the news.

The company claims that the new version is faster and easier to use because of the one swipe swap between the news and the home screen.

UCWeb

"We have used our own cloud technology to compress the web pages by almost 40%. UCWeb has its own Kernel like Chromium, so we have more control over the content and compression. That's why more and more people like to use it in India," Robert Bu General Manager India UCWeb told HuffPost India.

"Here in India, there a lot of areas where the network connectivity is not very good. So our faster downloads and faster streaming strikes a chord with the smartphone users," he added.

UCWeb also announced a partnership deal with ColorsTV for exclusive content on the microsite of the browser. The browser will have video clips, behind the scenes, news, games and more on shows including Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, 24, Big Boss and Comedy Nights Live.

"We want to push more content to the Indian users. We already have some apps in place which would help consumer more entertainment. For instance, we have UC cricket, which resides in the browser but acts like an app. It can send you reminders for the matches and a scorecard in the notification bar," Bu said.

In the future, UC web wants to be a platform for more app serving content or experiences. They already have an app store which resides in the browser. There are inbuilt apps such as video and audio player as well.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.