China’s leading mobile browser UC Browser has been launched in the Kenyan market providing millions of Kenyans with the opportunity to experience fast browsing speeds. Kenya currently has a total of 37.8 million mobile subscribers with almost 40 per cent of them using smart-phones. The number of internet subscriptions is similarly growing at a rapid rate with 21.6 million subscribers recorded as at the second quarter of the 2015/2016 financial year. As such it is a ripe market for the browser.
Kenny Ye, General Manager of Global Market, Alibaba Mobile Business Group had this to say, “The past few years have seen fast-lane growth in smartphone shipments to Kenya. Riding on the smartphone shift, UC Browser crafted a flurry of handy features, such as its Smart Downloader, Video Player and Gesture Support, to fully exploit the versatility of the smartphone, making mobile browsing easier and smarter for its users.”
Unlike other browsers which have positioned themselves as mobile browsing tools, the UC Browser has positioned itself as a content aggregator. This enables it to cater to its user’s appetite for content through providing better content and faster access to local web content. This positions the browser well in a market with a rapidly growing appetite for content consumption.
The browser is so good that it has become the number 2 best browser in the world and number 1 in Asia surpassing its competitors like Opera as per StatCounter. The browser has already beat Chrome and Opera in the important emerging markets such as India and Indonesia and the company believes that it can do the same in Africa.
Opera currently has a huge lead in Africa mostly due to the Opera Mini browser which is loved by many. Chrome comes in second and the UC Browser is slowly but surely moving into third place. So keep it here for updates on how the battle for our smart phones shapes out between the three browsers.
After reading up on the browser I decided to try it out and the experience so far is good and worth checking out. For those with either Infinix or Tecno phones you do not need to install the browser as some have it preinstalled.