UC Browser Pivots To Short-Form Content Material

UC Browser, an internet browser developed by China’s Alibaba Group-owned cell web firm UCWeb, has jumped on to the short-content bandwagon as a part of a method to handle the slowing development of its consumer base in India. Earlier this yr, UC Browser launched a short-content channel on the applying aggregating memes, jokes, GIFs, motivational quotes, humorous quotes and pictures.

“Primarily based on our inner analysis, short-form content material has already began evolving and reshaping the content material area. UC has taken initiatives to seize the development,” the corporate informed ET in an e mail. “We’re glad to see a speedy development of short-video creators on UC platform. As for now, the brief video has accounted for greater than 40% of total newsfeed consumption.”

Know-how content material platforms are betting on “snackable content material” that may be consumed by customers in 15-45 seconds. TikTok, owned by Alibaba’s competitor ByteDance, has seen large success the world over with steady circulation of 15-second movies. Bigo Know-how’s Like and Fb’s Lasso fall in the identical class.

“Brief-video content material has seen a surge in 2018, with over 3.6 crore brief movies aggregated on UC Browser. Brief-form content material, together with brief movies and snackable content material, is UC’s prime content material precedence for 2019,” the corporate stated. Learn: Alibaba invests $100M briefly video app VMate

UC Browser, which was launched in India in 2011, has seen a slowdown in consumer development in India. First-time downloads of UC Browser declined 34% year-over-year within the first quarter of 2019 to 30.2 million throughout each shops, down from 45.9 million within the year-ago quarter, in response to app monitoring agency Sensor Tower. Nonetheless, it was nonetheless among the many 10 most downloaded functions in India through the interval.

The corporate claims that it has 130 million month-to-month lively customers in India at current, simply because it had 14 months in the past.

“Now, UC is not restricted to be a tool-based product. We now have seen adjustments within the wants of native customers and have taken a strategic shift to content material, particularly brief content material,” it stated.

The short-content channel on utility is populated with movies of film stars, pranks, infants, animals, graphic information and plethora of clickbait movies with purple circles or arrows pointing to accidents, fights and unusual experiments.

Other than a devoted channel for brief movies, the cell utility’s residence web page has greater than 30 tabs exhibiting content material, together with cricket, leisure, information, expertise, jobs, training, devices, trend and relationships.

UC Browser began the information feed service in 2016 and has up to now partnered with greater than 500 media teams in India for content material provide. The corporate stated knowledge reveals that customers spend 20 minutes on common on every day studying and watching contents supplied by its information feed service.―Newpaper24