China’s ubiquitous WeChat doubles down on mini apps, short videos as it faces stricter regulation, market saturation
- With 1.26 billion monthly active users as of September 2021, WeChat is facing headwinds from regulatory crackdowns and fierce competition from rivals
- Allen Zhang Xiaolong, known as the father of WeChat and a star attraction at the event for the past six years, was absent this time around
China’s all-purpose WeChat app, owned by Tencent Holdings, is doubling down on mini programmes and short video to drive future growth as its user base reaches saturation point.
The 11-year-old WeChat, known locally as Weixin, is one of China’s most successful mobile apps, installed on virtually every smartphone in the country of one billion mobile internet users.
However, with 1.26 billion monthly active users as of September 2021, the app is facing headwinds from regulatory crackdowns, fierce competition from rivals such as ByteDance’s short video-sharing platform Douyin, and challenges when venturing into overseas markets.
At the annual event promoting the app’s new functions and strategies on Thursday, a group of middle-ranking Tencent executives who called themselves “WeChat lecturers”, made a joint effort to persuade Chinese users, including content creators and merchants, that the app would remain an important tool for entertainment and business in China with its mini programmes and short videos.
One key message from the event, titled WeChat Open Class Pro, was that the number of mini programmes – mostly developed by third parties – has been growing steadily, with 450 million daily active users in 2021. The frequency in which WeChat users accessed mini programmes increased 32 per cent in 2021 over the preceding year, the Shenzhen-based tech giant said.
Lake Zeng Ming, head of Weixin Open Platform at Tencent, said more than 700 million people used pandemic-related services, such as Covid-19 testing and vaccination appointments, through WeChat mini apps in 2021.
