BEIJING -  UC Mobile Ltd, a Chinese provider of browsers for mobile phones, announced on Wednesday that it plans to enter the North American market in the first half of this year.

Yu Yongfu, chief executive officer of UC Mobile, said his company hopes to compete in the US's fast-growing mobile Internet industry. By gaining experience in the US market, UC Mobile hopes to create more sophisticated products and introduce them to such countries as China and India.

"The US market is definitely different from emerging markets. Though we are confident about our technology, we face tough challenges in areas such as product design. Different countries have different tastes,”Yu said at a news briefing in Beijing.

Established in Beijing in 2004, UC Mobile had more than 300 million users worldwide by the end of 2011, with about 120 billion page visits per month. India, Indonesia, and Russia have been the fastest-growing overseas markets for UC Mobile, with users numbering 40 million in 2011.

UC Mobile currently has 20 million users, or about a 20 percent market share, in India, second only to Opera Software ASA, a Norwegian company.