UC Browser claims over 500 million quarterly active users

UC Browser, a popular mobile Internet browser by UCWeb, is claimed to have surpassed the 500 million quarterly active users mark and is now said to be the largest third-party browser by user base.

It has been also noted that out of the browser's 500 million quarterly active users, 300 million use an Android device, with India and China comprising the browser's major chunk of users.

"Out of UC Browser's 500 million users, 300 million use Android. With market leadership in China and India, the world's largest and second largest countries by population, as well as having a strong momentum in terms of user adoption in several other key markets, UC Browser is steadily moving towards fulfilling its mission to provide a better mobile internet experience to billions of users around the world," said the firm.

To celebrate the milestone, UC Browser has launched a new brand mascot. UC Web claims it has been redesigned to "better embody the faster and smarter web experience UC Browser delivers to its users."

In addition, UC Browser's proclaimed new mission is to provide users "with more than just a browsing tool", but also a "platform of rich content and services specially developed for users in different regions", reflected by its product tagline - "A Fast All-in-One Web Experience". One example of this approach is UC Browser's newly launched train enquiry service in India that gives users an easy, one-stop solution for checking train status and ticketing information.

The company is also looking to expand its shared mobile ecosystem. It is currently working with 5,000 partners - including online service providers, app and game developers, and e-commerce merchants. The company says it is also looking to expand its territory beyond smartphones and tablets. In early March, UC Browser for TV (Chinese version) was launched with features including access to online videos, TV-based online shopping, and plugins that turn your smartphone into a TV remote.

Earlier this month, UCWeb rolled out a new update to its UC Browser HD (version 3.0) browser app for Android. Some of the new additions in UC Browser HD 3.0 include gesture controlled browsing, which requires just a swipe of finger to go forward and backward through webpages; a gesture controlled video player, which detects the videos on a webpage and activates the built-in player offering gesture control over the video being played. In addition, the volume, brightness and playback progress of the video can be adjusted with a single finger slide.

Another addition to UC Browser HD with version 3.0 is the intelligent text zoom feature, which automatically enlarges the text on the webpage with a text body, such as news articles and forums.

Before this, the UC Browser got the feature of 'Easy Downloading Mode', which apparently helps make the user's device into the 'ultimate resource grabber'. The UC Browser 9.6 for Android's new Easy Downloading Mode shows 'all downloadable resources from a web page in a list' for easy download of content, seemingly tweaked for images, enabling users to choose and download the content they desire.