In a move to take advantage of the rapidly growing base
of mobile Internet users, YouTube on Thursday launched an offline
feature here.
The new offline feature for YouTube
app lets people take videos offline, using WiFi or their data plans.
Once taken offline, these can be viewed without an Internet connection
for up to 48 hours, allowing users to enjoy the videos without the worry
about slow connections.
YouTube is a subsidiary of Google Inc.
The
offline feature is the YouTube’s latest effort in a series of
initiatives to make video content more affordable and accessible to the
large base of mobile Internet users in India. It is YouTube’s first
release of ad-supported offline feature on Android and iOS, which was
announced earlier this year with the launch of Android One smartphones.
Google
India Managing Director Rajan Anandan said, “India is the world’s
largest mobile-only Internet user country, and of the 300 million
Internet users, 180-190 million users access Internet through mobile
phones.’’
Growing at the current rate, India will
cross 500 million Internet users by 2017, and to get to that figure,
Internet must be accessible and must have content, Mr. Anandan said
adding, “the good news is there are a huge, growing number of users but
the bad news is that India is bandwidth-starved with poor network
quality and expensive data. The new feature lets people watch videos for
short periods of low connectivity or no internet connection.’’
The
feature has been built for intermittent Internet access as is the case
in India. “We have 60 million YouTube users here. Globally, it is also
being simultaneously launched on Thursday in Indonesia and the
Philippines too. We will consider taking it to other Asian countries
too,’’ Ajay Vidyasagar, Regional Director, YouTube Partnerships, YouTube
Asia-Pacific, said.
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