Alibaba's UCWeb to Promote E-Commerce Firms Instead of Competing

Alibaba Group firm UCWeb on Friday said it will promote and support online shopping platforms in India rather than compete with them as it plans to launch e-commerce business this fiscal.

"Rather than competing with other e-commerce players, the new initiative would adopt a content platform model for promoting and supporting e-commerce players in India," UCWeb said in a statement.

UCWeb Global Business Vice President Huaiyuan Yang told PTI that the company's plan to foray into e-commerce space will not have any adverse impact on Paytm, in which Alibaba owns 30.15 per cent stake.

"Leveraging our extensive user communities in India, the new service is in line with our strategy to enrich the experience for users and clients alike," UCWeb said.

Alibaba Group owns 3 per cent stake in Snapdeal.

"We have Alibaba's e-commerce gene in us. We are actually trying to start innovative business model related to e-commerce," Yang had said on the sidelines of Alibaba Philanthropy forum.

UCweb, fully owned subsidiary of e-commerce giant Aliababa group, has been operating UC Browser in India since 2009. It claims to have registered 1.1 billion user downloads worldwide (excluding China), with half of its global installs from India. It also claims to have 130 million monthly active users in the country.

Besides, e-commerce solution, Yang said that the company will continue to focus on content on its platform, specially short videos.

UCWeb also have plans to start the sale of movie tickets online. PTI

Alibaba to Launch Video Streaming Service in India with Paytm, UCWeb

India’s online video market is expected to see a near 5x growth from $340 million in 2017 to $1.6 billion in 2022, at a compounded annual growth rate of 35%, keeping this fact in mind China's Alibaba is planning to launch an over the top (OTT) video service in India.

According to a report by The Ken, the video service will be powered by Paytm and UCWeb, a mobile internet subsidiary of Alibaba Group. The OTT service will also utilise the technology from Alibaba’s native OTT app in China -- Youku Todou.

The report further elaborated that senior officials of Alibaba from China have visited India over the last few months to understand the market. The officials have also met content creators and production houses in Mumbai.

Alibaba could use user-generated content for its OTT service, which is quite similar to the content strategy it followed for UC Web, which offers services like UCNews and UC Browser.

India's OTT video segment has about 30 providers including both domestic and foreign entities including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar and Voot, among others.

According to a recent survey by Counterpoint Research, the valuation of the over the top (OTT) video content market in India is at $280 million with nearly 100 million subscribers. This is nearly 150 million less than the number of monthly active users on Facebook.

In India, while Star India’s Hotstar stands first, Viacom18’s Voot stands second, followed by Amazon Prime Video, Sony Liv and Netflix.

UCWeb, Flipkart Join Hands to Launch Mobile-Site on UC Browser

UCWeb, the maker behind UC Browser, has partnered with ecommerce major Flipkart in an effort to offer its users shopping on the go. Flipkart site, now available on the home screen of UC Browser, will offer

The newly launched mobile-site aims to provide a top-notch experience to shoppers with core features such as search, offers and cart. Flipkart will gradually integrate advanced features in the subsequent releases. The mobile site is an endeavour to provide the users with a smoother, faster and more interactive flow than other mobile sites.



Announcing the partnership, Robert Bu, GM, UCWeb India said, “The m-commerce market is thriving with local e-tailors offering big-ticket discounts and mega offers. UC Browser, as the most popular browser in the country and Flipkart, the leading e-commerce company in India, would give users the best and most enjoyable shopping experience, along with the best offerings you can find on the internet."

"Flipkart has always believed in providing a superior and convenient shopping experience to its users across all touch points. With mobile becoming the main front where the next gen of shoppers are coming from, this launch strengthens our mission to create an extremely responsive interface for users, even on the mobile web. We are excited to partner with UCWeb and revolutionize the e-commerce landscape in the country." said Surojit Chatterjee, Senior Vice President and Head Consumer Experience & Growth – Flipkart.

Mobile web is an important gateway for ecommerce.While native apps are getting more and more popular, browsers are also providing increasingly better web experience to users. Only recently, UC Browser’s mega online shopping carnival saw over 17 million hits, with increased demand for lifestyle and household products. UC Browser also reported a 75% jump in its traffic for ecommerce in the month leading up to Diwali 2015. UC Browser, as a mobile gateway to internet for many mobile only users, is capable to deliver significant traffic to ecommerce sites.

UCBrowwser of UCWweb is India’s No. 1 mobile browser with over 55% market share (according to StatCounter) and a business within Alibaba mobile business group a seamless and enhanced shopping experience to users on web, even under low network availability.