World’s most popular mobile browser from China soars past the half billion user mark as it picks up steam overseas

UC Browser, the world’s most popular third-party mobile browser made by China’s UCWeb, announced today it passed the 500 million global quarterly active user mark.

UCWeb reported hitting the 400 million user threshold in May of last year, which means the browser gained an additional 100 million in less than 12 months. 300 million of its users are on Android.

To put that into perspective, China’s top messaging app and social network WeChat recently reported 355 million monthly active users. UC Browser’s figure is somewhat inflated because it is using quarterly stats as opposed to monthly, but it’s an impressive figure nonetheless.

(See: 5 great browsers to replace your phone’s stock browser)

China is home to UCWeb’s largest userbase, holding 65 percent of the mobile browser market share, according to iResearch. Smartphone users in China spend twice as much time on mobile browsers as they did a year ago.

In August, UC Browser overtook Opera as India’s top mobile browser, and now accounts for 32 percent market share according to StatCounter.

UC Browser is available for free on Android, iOS, Symbian, Java, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. UC Browser was also released for Android-based Smart TVs earlier this month.