Have you heard of Weixen? If not, Weixen when translated from Mandarin means micro-messaging. In the United States, you may know it as WeChat. Founded in 2011 and owned by Tencent, WeChat has 902 million daily users. In addition, about 38 billion messages are sent on the platform every day (check out this article from The Verge). Tencent, is a Chinese multinational holding company. If you’ve played or are familiar with League of Legends, Clash of Clans, or Gears of War, Tencent is the company that own these gaming franchises. Just FYI, Tencent’s share price has surged nearly 130 percent as WeChat has approached 1 billion users. It has used its cash to buy stakes in companies the world over, including here in the U.S: Tesla, Snapchat and Lyft now all count Tencent as an investor (Time). Back to WeChat, WeChat became a global phenomenon, reaching more than 100 million users outside China within 12 months; it was the second-most-downloaded app in India for 2013.
Do you know why WeChat is so popular? One of the reasons is due to integration/ ease of use. What makes WeChat so popular is that fact that users do not have to leave the app. The demographic that WeChat targets is young smartphone owners. WeChat combines features of communication, social media and mobile payment apps. According to Business Insider, WeChat users can do just about anything, including play games, send money to people, make video calls, order food, read the news, book a doctor appointment, and more. For example, prior to the Chinese New Year, WeChat developed a marketing campaign that allowed user to participate in the “Red Envelope Campaign”. This is cultural tradition includes a monetary gift that is placed in a red envelope and Chinese people give to family and friends during holiday season. In doing so, users linked their bank accounts with the app/ site.

Users outside of the country are even able to link their Facebook and Twitter accounts. In China, Facebook and Twitter are banned. Many people compare this social media company to the American social media site, Facebook. According to Fast Company, “the company embraced mobile years before Facebook, and has built a platform, used by 355 million active users, that functionally offers every popular service that Americans are familiar with.” You can utilize the app to hail taxis. WeChat realized that mobile commerce was the future. In 2014, They partnered with Didi Dache which allowed people to hail a cab and pay for it all within WeChat, totally without using cash. WeChat, similar to Facebook also opened their app to third party developers. Check out this cool article on Medium for more statistics on WeChat.

On the contrary, WeChat has come under fire for their closeness to the government. According to The Verge, WeChat will issue virtual ID cards, which individuals would use in lieu of physical state-issued ID cards. WeChat requires users to utilize their government names when registering for the app. One can also point to the fact that the app is really one of the only social media apps/ sites in China. Facebook has been censored since 2009, a South Korean App was blocked, and What’s App was banned in 2017. This censorship in certain ways aids WeChat in their dominance. State-run media and government agencies also have official WeChat accounts, where they can directly communicate with users.