The BBC World Service has launched a multilingual app for all of its non-English audiences for the first time.
Previously the BBC World Service had seven separate language apps, which were harder to scale, maintain and improve.
The aim is that having a single app will simplify operations, create a better mobile experience, and make it easier to add more languages and make other improvements in the future.
At launch the app features content from BBC News Arabic, BBC News Hindi, BBC News Mundo and BBC News Russian. It is not currently available to users in the UK or US.
Ana Bakalinova, group product manager for BBC World Service, said the app “will bring together our language services into one streamlined, multilingual mobile experience.
“The BBC World Service app will offer audiences a richer user experience, making the BBC’s global journalism easier to discover and easier to access across our language offers.”
Bakalinova described the app on Linkedin as “the most significant transformation of our digital products that I’ve been part of”.
She added: “It all started with one question I asked my team: What should the future of World Service on mobile look like? Today, that vision becomes reality.
“We’ve secured investment, built a dedicated team, and moved from seven legacy apps to one multilingual app – designed for our global multilingual audience, 90% of whom access us on mobile.”
The BBC also recently refreshed the World Service website to bring all of its 45 language services into one destination.
In March the UK Government announced new funding for the World Service of £11m per year for the next three years, representing an 8% increase on its total £137m contribution from last year. Government funding makes up about a third of the World Service budget.
The BBC said the settlement “ensures it can deliver trusted, independent journalism to audiences around the world, and counter the rising tide of disinformation globally”.
It also said at the time it needed to “make some changes in the months to come and transform our offer, so it is fit for the future” including a “further transition to digital”.
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