WeChat reaches one billion user milestone
WeChat, China’s most popular social media platform, has passed the one billion monthly active user mark.
WeChat passes one billion milestone
The milestone, which was achieved over the Chinese New Year holiday in February, was revealed by Tencent chief executive Pony Ma in China’s parliament this week.
WeChat's global monthly active users reached 938 million in the first quarter of 2017, which was a 23% increase year-on-year. In November last year, the app announced its daily active users had reached 902 million.
The growth brings WeChat closer to rival social apps such as What’sApp, which has 1.5 billion users, however, it is still well behind Facebook’s 2.1 billion users.
The app, which is called Weixin in China, has become a deeply embedded aspect in Chinese life with the app used for everything from messaging, phone calls, buying movie tickets, booking travel and of course digital payments.
More than half of all WeChat users spend more than 90 minutes on the app every day, while one-third spend more than 4 hours a day on the app.
The milestone comes as WeChat looks to drive increased growth both within China and increasingly abroad, particularly around its digital payment Tencent Pay and WeChat wallet.