UCWeb Inc. (also known as UC Mobile) is a Chinese mobile Internet company that offers products and services that include mobile browser, UC News, and search engine services. Its flagship product,

UC Browser UC Browser is a web browser developed by mobile internet company UCWeb, a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group. It was the most popular mobile browser in India, Indonesia, and Mali, as well as the second-most popular one in China as of 2017. Its w ...

, topped the Chinese, Indonesian and Indian markets in 2013.

Description

UCWeb was founded in 2004 as a mobile browser maker. Over the past decade, it diversified to areas such as mobile search, mobile gaming, mobile reading, etc. According to iResearch, in 2014, the company's UC Browser was the most popular browser of its kind in China, with more than 66% market share. It's available in 11 languages (English, Hindi, Russian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, etc.) and on all major mobile OS platform (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Java ME, Blackberry, etc.). As of March 2014, UC Browser had over 500 million users around the globe. In April 2014, UCWeb and

Alibaba Group Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba (), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in E-commerce in China, e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzho ...

jointly announced the formation of a JV named Shenma Inc. () that offers a mobile-only search engine in China. In June 2014, UCWeb was acquired by Alibaba Group in the largest Chinese Internet merger deal. This will see UCWeb form the Alibaba UC mobile business group by assimilating and consolidating part of mobile-related businesses within the Alibaba Group. After the merger, under the leadership of Yu Yongfu, chief executive of UCWeb since 2006, the Alibaba UC mobile business group will oversee the browser, search, location-based service, app store, mobile gaming, and mobile reader operations. In 2015 it was revealed as part of the Snowden leaks that UCBrowser leaks sensitive IMSI,

IMEI The International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) is a numeric identifier, usually Unique identifier, unique, for 3GPP and iDEN mobile phones, as well as some satellite phones. It is usually found printed inside the battery compartment of the ph ...

and

MSISDN MSISDN ( ) is a number uniquely identifying a subscription in a Global System for Mobile communications or a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System mobile network. It is the mapping of the telephone number to the subscriber identity module in ...

data, which was used by intelligence agencies to track users.Spy agencies target mobile phones, app stores to implant spyware
- CBC, 22 May 2015

References

{{Alibaba Group Alibaba Group acquisitions Internet search engines Software companies of China Companies based in Beijing Companies based in Guangzhou Chinese companies established in 2004 Internet technology companies of China Software companies based in Beijing Chinese brands 2014 mergers and acquisitions