The all-in-one app that your company should use

Let’s talk about the application that has it all; WeChat.

WeChat is China’s most popular messaging app and also the fifth biggest company in the world, worth over $500 billion. Founded in 2011 by Chinese tech giant Tencent, WeChat has a monthly user base of more than 1 billion people, and over 45 billion messages are sent on the platform daily. TenCent Holdings is the fifth biggest company in the world, worth $509 billion. The company also owns the riot game, League of Legends and holds various significant stakes in other international apps including Snapchat and Fortnite.

There is nothing quite comparable to WeChat, as it offers much more than just messaging. WeChat is one of the main ways for communication in China. Even when doing business, people prefer WeChat over email. WeChat offers WeChat Official Accounts, a cooperation and promotion service that can be used by individuals, governments, media organisations and business enterprises.

Next to keeping up with friends and family, WeChat can be used to play games, book flights, pay bills, book doctor appointments, file police reports, hail taxis, access bank services and much more. Games within WeChat are very important for Tencent, as it accounted for 32% of total revenue stream in the the third quarter of 2018.

One of the greatest things in modern day china is the use of mobile payment.

According to a survey, 92% of people in China’s largest cities use WeChat Pay or Alipay as their main means of payment, making cash something of the past.

China has developed differently in terms of payments methods compared to most countries: Chinese people have jumped from using cash to using phones without the middle steps of cheques and bank cards. From supermarkets to small street vendors, you can pay for everything with your mobile. Next to the basic functions of the mobile payment applications, users can also pay their utility bills, buy train tickets, reserve a hotel suite and many more services. Paying with your phone works by scanning the merchants’ unique barcode you are buying an item from, or you can let the merchant scan your barcode. The mobile payment method used on WeChat was used over 140 billion times between the pandemic in China between January and May! This has led to a growth of the QR code economy by 26%.

One key feature is called “mini-programs” which are apps within WeChat. Instead of having one app for ride-sharing and another one for banking, a lot of these apps are integrated into WeChat so that the app becomes a one-stop shop for its users. With over 1 million mini programs on WeChat, covering 200 categories and more than 200 million daily users, mini programs have become a must in China. One of the perks of the WeChat e-commerce mini-programs is the integration with WeChat pay, which makes the purchasing process easier and faster. Another advantage is that the mini programs is that it takes up no storage on your phone, as there is no need to download it on your phone.

Example: Tesla enables users to locate charging stations, schedule test drives and lets them share their experiences about driving a Tesla car (What are WeChat Mini-programs, 2018)

With the hundreds of millions of people using WeChat, there are a huge number of potential consumers. We would recommend every company trying to reach the Chinese market to look into WeChat marketing!