WeChat: The evolution and future of China’s most popular app

WeChat has grown from a voice messaging platform into a truly ubiquitous app experience in China. Owned by parent company Tencent Holdings, the WeChat app has over 900 million monthly active users.

 

Those users are very active, too; the average daily time spent on the app rose to 66 minutes in 2016 — Facebook’s daily average is 50 minutes.

 

WeChat’s growth still shows no sign of slowing, either. For example, there is a significant, untapped opportunity to monetize this vast user base through advertising, gaming, and payment processing.

 

Known in China as Weixin, WeChat’s various functionalities are now deeply woven into the fabric of daily life for its users.

“WeChat has grown from a voice messaging platform into a truly ubiquitous app experience in China. Owned by parent company Tencent Holdings, the WeChat app has over 900 million monthly active users.”

As such, this is now known as the WeChat Universe, and it continues to expand into new territories and new aspects of daily life.

Within this article, we will endeavor to provide some background on the past, present, and future of WeChat, focusing mainly on the following questions:

• Where has WeChat come from?
• What exactly is the WeChat app?
• Who typically uses the app?
• What can it be used for?
• What are WeChat’s ‘mini-apps’?
• Why is it so successful? And how does it compare to Western equivalents?
• What do marketers need to know about WeChat?
• How are brands using the platform for advertising?
• Will WeChat expand internationally, or is its huge success confined to China?