WeChat - can it enter the global market?
At the end of February, Tencent, the developer of QQ and WeChat instant messengers that are extremely popular in China (this is just the last one), took a new step towards entering the international market. A group is being formed on the basis of one of the company's divisions, which will explore the prospects for promoting WeChat to the American market.
Initially, the article was conceived solely as a translation, but after viewing the results of habra search, WeChat requested (there were only 3 articles, and in all three cases the mention was only indirect), and in the process of writing it was decided to turn the translation into a more or less independent article
In China, almost two million years, almost 300 million people began to use WeChat. But will the Chinese messenger be able to achieve similar success in the Western market?
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Review, translation, analysis and a small survey - under the cut.
Wechat mobile messenger from its first appearance in January 2011 quickly gained popularity among Chinese users. If we draw parallels, the closest “relative” of WeChat can be considered the well-known WhatsApp. However, in addition to text messages, the Chinese added to their program many other "bells and whistles":
• voice messages, a feature quite popular among Chinese users, according to personal observations, the traffic is used rather sparingly. The new versions have video (and audio) calls.
• “Moments” or “Circle of Friends”, local Instagram - photos, statuses, “likes”, comments. "Follow" can only be those who you have in the contact list. “Likes” and comments from the rest, even on the photos of your friends, are not displayed (though not exactly Instagram)
• Search for people nearby, search for those who shake the phone along with you, “message in a bottle” - you can start your text message or voice message in “swimming” over WeChat’s “seas” (or read the “messages” of others who times chosen randomly).
• Integration with QQ, some other services of the same Tencent (another Tencent Weibo Twitter service, QQ Mail), as well as Facebook (the latter, given the Facebook blocking in China, looks pretty funny). Also, using WeChat, you can receive offline messages from QQ (although, from personal experience, this function is far from perfect yet).
• Many more minor additional features.
A few screenshots (taken from the official website of the program)
(the rightmost screenshot is those “moments”)
Initially, the program advanced under the purely Chinese name Weixin (“micropost”, the Chinese call it now), in October 2011 a translation into English appeared (as well as Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Vietnamese and Russian), and from April 2012 “ Weixin "was replaced by a more understandable for a foreigner" WeChat ". All this is available on Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Symbian platforms. Registration is possible in three ways: binding to a phone number, through a QQ account or using Facebook Connect.
As already mentioned, in China, WeChat became popular rather quickly. According to some reports, by the beginning of this year, the program was already used by 300 million users. Of these, about 10 million are foreign [1] . However, despite everything, WeChat has not yet received wide distribution in the West. According to Ma Huaten (founder of Tencent, also known as "Pony" Ma [2] ), at the moment there are examples of Chinese companies that have successfully made a name for themselves abroad, but there are no Internet projects in their ranks, in this competition the Chinese Internet far far behind.
(It is worth saying that one of the limiting factors for promoting Chinese Internet projects in the West is that many of them, such as Sina Weibo (local Twitter), Renren (social network), etc., first , still not translated into English, and, secondly (which is much more important), 99% of user content is published in Chinese in these networks. For WeChat, the situation is easier in this regard, since the interface translation is there, and connection with the specifics of the application, the issue with the content language is not so important, since communication in most cases goes with his friends).
As you can see, WeChat has opportunities and potential. According to Ma himself, “In Asia, the market for exclusively mobile applications is developing even faster than in the West” (in his opinion, Western developers are still primarily tied to PC and Web). In addition to mainland China, at the moment Wechat is slowly gaining popularity in Hong Kong, Taiwan. Tencent invests quite a bit in promoting WeChat in Southeast Asia: through cooperation with local companies (and joint ventures) or, as it did in Indonesia, by organizing a television advertising campaign with local celebrities. Although in Southeast Asia, WeChat will have a rather long and difficult competition, the rivals can be called the Korean KakaoTalk or the Japanese Line [3] . (well, the same whatsapp, facebook, etc.)
In the United States, Tencent has much more work to do. Compared to the regions mentioned above, in the Americas, Tencent has taken only the first steps. The bulk of the American users of the program are ethnic Chinese permanently residing in the United States or Chinese students who came to study [4] . The niche that WeChat wants to occupy is already occupied by programs such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc. Ma Huaten himself considers Facebook as the main rival (after all, the largest social network in the world) , which has become even stronger since the acquisition of Instagram. To say whether in the end, WeChat succeed in the US market, Ma, of course, can not.
Of course, it is not yet possible to unequivocally answer “yes” or “no” to this question. Yes, WeChat has features that competitors do not have - in particular, combining a large number of functions "under one roof." But will western users like this approach? Hard to say. It may be more convenient for them to use a separate application for each task: for communication - Facebook / WhatsApp, for uploading photos - Instagram, for video calls - Skype (or analogs), and so on.
In conclusion, I would like to ask you one question. Before reading this article, did you know what WeChat is?
Initially, the article was conceived solely as a translation, but after viewing the results of habra search, WeChat requested (there were only 3 articles, and in all three cases the mention was only indirect), and in the process of writing it was decided to turn the translation into a more or less independent article
In China, almost two million years, almost 300 million people began to use WeChat. But will the Chinese messenger be able to achieve similar success in the Western market?
')
Review, translation, analysis and a small survey - under the cut.
Introduction, or what is WeChat
Wechat mobile messenger from its first appearance in January 2011 quickly gained popularity among Chinese users. If we draw parallels, the closest “relative” of WeChat can be considered the well-known WhatsApp. However, in addition to text messages, the Chinese added to their program many other "bells and whistles":
• voice messages, a feature quite popular among Chinese users, according to personal observations, the traffic is used rather sparingly. The new versions have video (and audio) calls.
• “Moments” or “Circle of Friends”, local Instagram - photos, statuses, “likes”, comments. "Follow" can only be those who you have in the contact list. “Likes” and comments from the rest, even on the photos of your friends, are not displayed (though not exactly Instagram)
• Search for people nearby, search for those who shake the phone along with you, “message in a bottle” - you can start your text message or voice message in “swimming” over WeChat’s “seas” (or read the “messages” of others who times chosen randomly).
• Integration with QQ, some other services of the same Tencent (another Tencent Weibo Twitter service, QQ Mail), as well as Facebook (the latter, given the Facebook blocking in China, looks pretty funny). Also, using WeChat, you can receive offline messages from QQ (although, from personal experience, this function is far from perfect yet).
• Many more minor additional features.
A few screenshots (taken from the official website of the program)
(the rightmost screenshot is those “moments”)
Initially, the program advanced under the purely Chinese name Weixin (“micropost”, the Chinese call it now), in October 2011 a translation into English appeared (as well as Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Vietnamese and Russian), and from April 2012 “ Weixin "was replaced by a more understandable for a foreigner" WeChat ". All this is available on Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Symbian platforms. Registration is possible in three ways: binding to a phone number, through a QQ account or using Facebook Connect.
China -> Southeast Asia -> USA
As already mentioned, in China, WeChat became popular rather quickly. According to some reports, by the beginning of this year, the program was already used by 300 million users. Of these, about 10 million are foreign [1] . However, despite everything, WeChat has not yet received wide distribution in the West. According to Ma Huaten (founder of Tencent, also known as "Pony" Ma [2] ), at the moment there are examples of Chinese companies that have successfully made a name for themselves abroad, but there are no Internet projects in their ranks, in this competition the Chinese Internet far far behind.
(It is worth saying that one of the limiting factors for promoting Chinese Internet projects in the West is that many of them, such as Sina Weibo (local Twitter), Renren (social network), etc., first , still not translated into English, and, secondly (which is much more important), 99% of user content is published in Chinese in these networks. For WeChat, the situation is easier in this regard, since the interface translation is there, and connection with the specifics of the application, the issue with the content language is not so important, since communication in most cases goes with his friends).
As you can see, WeChat has opportunities and potential. According to Ma himself, “In Asia, the market for exclusively mobile applications is developing even faster than in the West” (in his opinion, Western developers are still primarily tied to PC and Web). In addition to mainland China, at the moment Wechat is slowly gaining popularity in Hong Kong, Taiwan. Tencent invests quite a bit in promoting WeChat in Southeast Asia: through cooperation with local companies (and joint ventures) or, as it did in Indonesia, by organizing a television advertising campaign with local celebrities. Although in Southeast Asia, WeChat will have a rather long and difficult competition, the rivals can be called the Korean KakaoTalk or the Japanese Line [3] . (well, the same whatsapp, facebook, etc.)
In the United States, Tencent has much more work to do. Compared to the regions mentioned above, in the Americas, Tencent has taken only the first steps. The bulk of the American users of the program are ethnic Chinese permanently residing in the United States or Chinese students who came to study [4] . The niche that WeChat wants to occupy is already occupied by programs such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc. Ma Huaten himself considers Facebook as the main rival (after all, the largest social network in the world) , which has become even stronger since the acquisition of Instagram. To say whether in the end, WeChat succeed in the US market, Ma, of course, can not.
So can or not?
Of course, it is not yet possible to unequivocally answer “yes” or “no” to this question. Yes, WeChat has features that competitors do not have - in particular, combining a large number of functions "under one roof." But will western users like this approach? Hard to say. It may be more convenient for them to use a separate application for each task: for communication - Facebook / WhatsApp, for uploading photos - Instagram, for video calls - Skype (or analogs), and so on.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to ask you one question. Before reading this article, did you know what WeChat is?
- ↑ http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/758036.shtml
- ↑ Ma (马) in Chinese - "horse", hence the nickname
- Then http://thenextweb.com/
- ↑ Another significant share of overseas WeChat users is students who came to study in China.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/172595/
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