As more and more mainlanders go online via smartphones, China's most popular mobile browser maker UCWeb is gearing up for a US expansion strategy in 2013.

"This year, our main focus is primarily on product development for the US market," Yu Yongfu, CEO of UCWeb, told China Daily. "As always, we believe that the product will speak for itself. We hope that by the end of 2013, our product will take a leap forward, and bring US users a product they like.

"Our US operation is growing very fast," Yu continued. "Aside from the product team, our business development team has also established partnerships with US mainstream internet companies, creating a win-win ecosystem. Today we have more than 400 million users worldwide."

Last year, UCWeb opened an American office in Sunnyvale, Silicon Valley, and became strategic partners with two US startups: Evernote and Gameloft.

"The partnership with us not only helps a US startup expand its Chinese market through our open platforms, it also provides the opportunity to leverage our resources to promote their products through UC Browser," Yu said.

Yu's American strategy is based on a belief that the biggest opportunities over the next three to five years lie in mobile internet and that China and Silicon Valley will become two centers for the booming mobile internet industry.

For UCWeb, the biggest challenge right now is bridging the cultural differences between the two countries, what Yu calls "product localization" and "user experience". He uses colors as an example. In the US, he says, the color red represents alarm and trouble, in the US stock market, red means loss or a drop, and green means plus or an increase. In China, the color red presents happiness, thus for the Chinese stock market, red means increase, and green represents a drop.

"That's why our product development operation in the US needs to hire more locals," he said, "they know the taste of their fellow Americans."

As talent goes back and forth between China and Silicon Valley, ideas and innovation will also be inter-changed between the two countries, bringing more opportunities in product research and development in both countries, Yu said, adding that Chinese companies in the industry "are slowing changing their image from being a copycat to creating their own products".

"For mobile internet, the center is no longer just the US," he said, "it has become a game for Asia and the US."

He said mobile internet began in China and Japan much earlier than in the United States, where it didn't get going until 2007 when Apple released the first iPhone, and didn't start booming until 2008, when the App Store was launched.

"There was a four-year gap," he said, "between when we launched the world's first mobile browser in 2004, the UC Browser, our flagship product, which is currently installed on more than 200 brands, and more than 3,000 different types of mobile devices.

"From our perspective, the browser is used as a bridge in connecting users with the mobile internet," Yu said. "This means that network operators, cell phone manufacturers, content providers and everyone on this eco-chain could become our business partners."

Currently, UC Browser is available in 10 languages, including English, Russian, and Vietnamese, and has service in more than 150 countries. In addition, it has more than a 10 percent market share in at least six countries.

chenjia@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 07/04/2013 page2)