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"With over 400 million users around the globe, UCWeb is ready to make the jump from a mobile browser to a platform that supports its own app ecosystem.\u00A0 During last week\u2019s GMIC event, we met up with UCWeb CEO Yu Yongfu to discuss the company\u2019s rise as a \u201Csuper app\u201D and its plans for continued international growth.\r\n\r\nUCWeb defines a super app as \u201Can app that has a large user base, high usage rate, and the ability to support extended services by acting as a platform for third party apps and services.\u201D For instance, Asian messaging services like WeChat, Line and Kakao have achieved super status. Over in the west, services like Facebook, Twitter and Evernote have earned the title.\r\n\r\nBy its own account, UCWeb took its place among other super apps in July when it launched its open platform for developers. Now it\u2019s courting partners to develop HTML5 Web apps, plugins and application bookmarks for its mobile browser.\r\n\r\nA year ago, UCWeb has more than 10 percent market share in six countries. Now it has achieved the feat in 10 nations. UCWeb\u2019s home county of China remains its best market, with more than 50 percent share, and the company continues to see strong growth in India, where it passed 30 percent share this summer.\r\n\r\nUCWeb also notched a victory earlier this year when Alibaba founder Jack Ma joined its board of directors.\r\n\r\n\u201CJack Ma has, of all people, one of the best high level strategic views of the industry,\u201D Yu said, adding that Ma has provided some \u201Cvaluable ideas\u201D since joining.\r\nSuper apps\r\nUCWeb sees the super app/light app model as an emerging trend in Asia. Several of China\u2019s largest Internet companies, including Baidu, Tencent and Sina, are all pursuing the strategy. Yu touts UCWeb as the number two super app in China in terms of downloads.\r\n\r\n\u201COver the past few years, there has been a controversial discussion whether the market is going toward native apps or web apps. The argument is coming to a conclusion,\u201D Yu said.\r\n\r\nHe pointed to the prevalence of long-tail apps that gain just a tiny fraction of the downloads on an app store. By his reckoning, 0.1% of apps account for 70% of overall downloads, and that ratio will continue to expand.\r\n\r\nFrom the users\u2019 perspective, Yu argued that they simply want a better experience and content, irrespective of whether it comes through a native or a Web app.\r\n\r\n\u201CThe native/web app [distinction] is an issue for developers, not users,\u201D he said.\r\n\r\nYu also believes that rarely-opened native apps can be less suitable for users because of bandwidth requirements, costs and frequent updates.\r\n\r\n\u201CThe problem they face is they download [an app] and by the time they get around to using it, it\u2019s already time to update,\u201D he said.\r\n\r\nYu\u2019s research suggests that 70 percent of the data that Chinese users consume on iOS is spent on updating apps.\r\n\r\n\u201CThe advantage of a super app and an open super app platform is that it\u2019s very supportive of the needs of users to be able to use apps as frequently and infrequently they want without having to update,\u201D he noted.\r\n\r\nOn the developer side, app makers can reduce their R&amp;amp;amp;D costs by creating light apps. Yu also asserted that native apps tend to be more closed \u2013 something that goes against the spirit of the Internet.\r\nUS strategy\r\nUCWeb has seen ready adoption in emerging markets around the world, but it has yet to fully make a splash in the US. Yu said the company is in the \u201Cinitial stages\u201D of tailoring its browser for US consumers, adding that it is making \u201Cfast progress.\u201D\r\n\r\nThe firm\u2019s US office isn\u2019t just tasked with growing its share of the local market. UCWeb has also established an R&amp;amp;amp;D center to to tap Silicon Valley talent on a global scale. UCWeb also makes strategic investments in US companies that want to reach international markets.\r\nMobile is global\r\nSince mobile startups are going international at an earlier stage than traditional PC and Internet firms, UCWeb is on the lookout for companies it can help with its wide international reach across key markets like China and India.\r\n\r\nUCWeb has made investments in more than 20 companies over the past few years, and it\u2019s keen to make more, especially in the US.\r\n\r\nChinese Internet giants have in the past struggled to get overseas, so I was curious what UCWeb\u2019s secret was. Yu pointed to the global nature of the mobile industry as a key factor. In a sense, UCWeb is China\u2019s first mobile giant, since most of the big players rose up as PC-focused companies before switching to mobile-first strategies.\r\n\r\nIn Yu\u2019s view, the PC era was dominated by US companies, leaving international firms to study them and then follow suit in their own markets.\r\n\r\n\u201CWe noticed a pattern that Japanese companies, European companies, Australian companies, all didn\u2019t do as well as US companies in the global market,\u201D Yu said. \u201CIf you build your company based on copying someone else\u2019s model, then you\u2019re not going to become a leader.\u201D\r\n\r\nHowever, the rise of the mobile Internet didn\u2019t happen first in the US, as Japan, China and Korea had advanced mobile markets in the early 2000s. Yu suggested that a reason for the difference is that cell phones became a lifestyle in Asia, where commuters tended to take public transportation. US workers, on the other hand, often drove in to work, so they couldn\u2019t use their phones on their commute.\r\n\r\n\u201CWhen I came [to the US] for business trips in 2007-2008, I was really struck by how big and ugly and simple everybody\u2019s handsets were. It made me see that people still thought of the mobile phone as a tool for communication,\u201D Yu said. \u201CBut in Asia at that time (Japan, Korea or China), the cellphones were thin, stylish, all kinds of different colors. In the US, they were shaped like bricks.\u201D\r\n\r\nThe popularity of texting in Asia also helped. Yu estimated that texting in the region became popular as early as the year 2000, giving it as much as an eight-year head start on the US.\r\n\r\n\u201CIf you\u2019re looking at companies that have done well globally, Line has gone global from Japan. During the PC era we wouldn\u2019t have seen a Japanese or Chinese company go global like this.\u201D\r\n\r\nYu said he meets with a lot of American teams that come through China looking to learn from the country\u2019s mobile Internet industry.\r\nYes, we can\r\nUCWeb\u2019s focus on mobile was no accident. Yu said the firm was founded with the vision of helping connect many more users to the Internet.\r\n\r\n\u201CIf you want to look at everybody around the globe having an access point to the internet, that access point is the mobile Internet, not the PC Internet.\u201D\r\n\r\nUCWeb, which is a play on \u201CYou Can Web\u201D according to Yu, has already fulfilled its vision for hundreds of millions of users. Cracking the US market won\u2019t be easy, but the company has already earned its place as one of the few Chinese mobile firms to go international.\r\n\r\nImage credit: Flickr / Julien GONG Min"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/11/01/ucweb-ceo-yu-yongfu-mobile-super-apps-taking-globe/>