Tencent, China’s largest Internet company, has revealed that its Weixin/WeChat messaging application has topped 200 million users just six months after hitting the 100 million mark, Tech in Asia reports.
Founder and CEO Pony Ma outed the numbers at the government-sponsored China Internet Conference. Ma also pointed to a significant trend toward mobile devices among users. According to him, over half of Tencent’s QQ users log on via mobile terminals.
“Mobile is great because it sticks to users whenever they go. Unlike PCs, mobile also has location features which bring about new industries such as O2O (online to offline) services,” author Willis Wee translated Ma as saying.
To provide an example, Ma said WeChat logs over 700 million location-based actions each day.
WeChat’s ascension has drawn the attention of international brands looking to market their products in China. Just last month, Nike announced its first advertising campaign on the service. A recent report from Chinese luxury industry specialists JingDaily notes that companies like Cadillac and Starbucks are giving WeChat campaigns a try.
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Tencent recently released a new version of WeChat that adds photo integration with Facebook and Twitter and includes a Web Grab feature that lets users shake their phone to import links from a PC browser.
Image via Flickr / faykwong
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