Alibaba Mobile Group appoints Damon Xi as Head of UCWeb for India

UCWeb's flagship product UC Browser is the number one platform in India with over 50% market share

Alibaba Mobile Business Group, part of Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment, has announced the appointment of Damon Xi as Head of UCWeb India and Indonesia office.

In his new role, Damon will be in charge of the UCWeb ecosystem along with content cooperation within India and Indonesia markets. Prior to this, Damon was General Manager of UCWeb India, leading strategic alliance and business development for the company in India.

In a significant restructuring announced last month, Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group elevated Jack Huang to President of Alibaba Mobile Business Group and Young Li as Head of International Business Department at Alibaba Mobile Business Group.

UCWeb's flagship product UC Browser is the number one platform in India and Indonesia with over 50 percent market share, ahead of Google Chrome and Opera. UC Browser is also the sixth most downloaded application on Android platform in India and has crossed 100 million monthly active users.

India and Indonesia have become most important overseas markets for UCWeb. Over the last 6 years, UCWeb has transformed itself from being the largest mobile browser to a leading content distribution platform in India through the launch and integration of UC News.

UC News is a big-data powered content distributor, serving as a one-stop destination for trending and curated news content. It has featured channels on general news, cricket, technology, entertainment, movies, lifestyle, health, and humor. UC News has crossed 100 Million Monthly Active Users (MAUs), rapidly growing in India and Indonesia market since its launch in June 2016.

In January, Alibaba announced a Rs. two billion investment to build UCWeb in India and Indonesia over the next two years, by tapping into the potential of user-generated content. UCWeb's strength in technology is helping UC News process millions of data request and content of massive origins everyday with the help of its three big data clusters set-up in India.

The UC We-Media program where people get an opportunity to create, to write, share thoughts and engage with their followers on UC News is set to expand to 30,000 contributors by the end of 2017, producing over 10,000 pieces of content daily.

Alibaba Mobile Business Group is part of Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment which reported a 271 per cent jump, year-on-year, for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017 with significant contributions from mobile internet services revenue from UCWeb businesses, including mobile search and news feeds, as well as apps and game publishing across China as well as key global markets like India and Indonesia.