Alibaba’s UCWeb further elaborated its plans to managed and distribute content through its UC News platform at a press event held in New Delhi, India and also announced the We-Media Reward Plan 2.0 to encourage budding bloggers to put up quality content on the portal.
UC news, which first debuted in June 2016, now as over 80 million active monthly users in India. It also claims to have registered over 3100 Million page views in the month of January alone, which translates to a stirring 100 Million page views daily.
Over the next 3 years, Alibaba Group plans to invest another $7.2 Billion to further strengthen its content-stronghold, and the We-Media Plan 2.0 is the next step in this expansion strategy.
Under the new WeMedia Plan 2.0, 1000 authors will be recruited from India and Indonesia who will earn ’at least’ 50,000 INR through UC News. The Program saw an increase of 200% and 350% (MoM) in its page views of English and Hindi We-Media content respectively in the past quarter.
Announcing the initiative on his visit to India, He Xiaopeng, Co-Founder UCWeb and President, Alibaba Mobile Business Group said, “Dominance of mobile and digital proliferation is leading to an increased adoption of mobile internet and is making India ‘Digitally Ready’. UCWeb is realising its vision of “Serve half the population of the planet”, and we are moving forward to the era of “GUF” (Google, UCWeband Facebook). The investment falls under Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group’s targeted investment of $7.2 billion in content over the next three years.”
“Content consumption on mobile is rapidly rising while the We-Media ecosystem is still at a nascent stage. According to our data, there are at least 400,000 self-publishers in India already with a huge scope to grow the market, especially in the niche categories. UC Browser was launched with an aim to solve browsing-related problems while UC News and We-Media program aim to meet the increasing demand of varied content by users and build a well-established ecosystem. With our strengths in technology like Big Data AI and vast experience in markets like China, UCWeb will augment its focus on digital content aggregation and distribution in the world’s second largest internet market, India. We aim for UC We- Media to open a gateway to more opportunities in India’s content industry and emerge as the No. 1 content generation and service platform in 2017.” Xiaopeng added.
