SmartNews Surpasses 10 Million Global Downloads, Launches International Edition Beta for 150+ Countries
Summary: The #1 News app in Japan and U.S. hits 10 million downloads and is now available for the entire world on the App Store and Google Play
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, February 3, 2015 – SmartNews (smartnews.com), the award-winning news-discovery app, today announced that it’s been downloaded more than 10 million times, making it the #1 news app in the U.S. and Japan. Previously available only in these two countries, SmartNews is now available for the entire world starting today with the launch of its International Edition beta.
“After being downloaded more than 10 million times in the U.S. and Japan, we’ve received enormous demand from people around the world to open up SmartNews internationally,” said Dr. Ken Suzuki, co-founder and co-CEO of SmartNews.
With its sleek, skimmable headlines, offline reading mode, and the highest quality news selection, SmartNews quickly became the hottest news app in Japan after its December 2012 launch, winning multiple “App of the Year” awards. In October, 2014, SmartNews released a U.S. edition, which immediately attracted one million monthly active users in just three months—making it the #1 news app on the App Store and Google Play in both countries. The new International Edition beta will be available today in more than 150+ countries for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
“What makes SmartNews special is our discovery engine. Our machine learning algorithm gets smarter every day, learning from millions of users what stories really matter to humanity — not just what your friends are reading,” said Kaisei Hamamoto, co-founder and co-CEO, SmartNews. “Delivering culturally relevant and country-specific news in real-time is a monumental task. The first step is opening up the SmartNews International edition beta to the world so our algorithm can begin learning what people want to read in each country.”
Designed by an international team of PhDs, mathematicians, physicists and neuroscientists, SmartNews’s proprietary machine learning algorithm evaluates tens of millions of articles, social signals and other cues every day to determine the stories worth reading now. Story selections are intelligently optimized for each country based on categories, such as Lifestyle, Tech, Sports, Business, World and more.
Last week, SmartNews was also named a launch partner for Now cards in the Google app, allowing Android users to see trending news articles even more conveniently than ever before.
Learn more and download the app at: www.smartnews.com
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About SmartNews
With offices in Tokyo, San Francisco and New York, SmartNews is dedicated to delivering quality information from the world to the people who need it. Founded in December 2012 by Kaisei Hamamoto and Dr. Ken Suzuki, SmartNews uses proprietary machine learning algorithms to evaluate tens of millions of articles, social signals and other cues each day to discover and deliver the stories that matter now.
SmartNews has won numerous “App of The Year” and “Best News App” awards and is available in Google Play for Android devices and the App Store for iPhones and iPads.
For more information or to download the app, visit: www.smartnews.com
Press Contact:
Vincent Chang
Senior Manager, Communications