Tencent begins in-app feature for 800 million users, extending WeChat's usefulness
Xiaochengxu will let uses discover and access new mobile apps without ever leaving WeChat, similar to what Facebook provides to game players via its Instant Games.
Tencent Holdings, the operator of China’s largest mobile social media network, has rolled out a new in-app downloading feature for WeChat’s nearly 800 million users, extending its uses that already span everything from file sharing and video chatting to ride-hailing and online payments.
The Xiaochengxu (小程序) feature, small apps [mini programmes] in English, will let uses discover and access new mobile applications via the latest HTML5 markup language without ever leaving WeChat, similar to what Facebook provides to game players via its Instant Games.
Users “can simply use WeChat to scan quick respond (QR) codes offline to access certain apps or search the names of an app within WeChat,” the social network’s reclusive creator Zhang Xiaolong said. “When they are done, they can close the in-app pages. There is no need to delete apps.”
Zhang said the feature’s rollout, on the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, is a tribute to the Apple Inc’s late founder Steve Jobs. It’s also a page out of Apple’s playbook, which manages an ecosystem where applications are developed, distributed and ranked.
The new feature allows users to get apps without going into app stores. So many industry insiders thought WeChat planned to create its own App Store by launching the new feature.
