WeChat breaks 700 million monthly active users

WeChat breaks 700 million MAU

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WeChat is quickly catching up to Messenger and WhatsApp as it races to reach 1 billion monthly active users (MAU).

The massively popular Chinese chat app surpassed 700 million MAU during March 2016, up 29% year-over-year (YoY) from the same period in 2015, according to data from Quest Mobile.

Tencent-owned WeChat has been China’s social app of choice for some time. The nearest Chinese social messaging app, in terms of monthly active users, is QQ — also owned by Tencent — which has roughly 150 million fewer users. WeChat is best known for being the first platform to offer users access to a broad array of capabilities, including the ability to order a cab, make a doctor's appointment, and make peer-to-peer payments. Messenger recently launched its Messenger platform, which will give its users access to similar capabilities.  

WeChat is successfully expanding its presence beyond China, where a majority of its users reside. The app is nearing saturation within its domestic market, where approximately 93% of those living in Tier 1 cities in China are already counted among WeChat’s registered users. China’s smartphone population is estimated to be around 700 million.

In order to increase growth, the company has magnified its efforts to gain users in other emerging markets, such as India, South East Asia, and Latin America. The most recent numbers available show there are roughly 70 million WeChat users outside of China, however, the number is likely much larger than that. If it manages to gain traction in foreign markets, WeChat could threaten the dominance of other popular messaging apps such as Messenger, WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, and Line.

Messaging apps have been exploding in popularity and they have evolved beyond simple tools to communicate with friends and family. Now we can send photos, videos, and even money right through these apps, and that's just the beginning.

Will McKitterick, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on messaging apps that takes a close look at the size of the messaging app market, how these apps are changing, and the types of opportunities for monetization that have emerged from the growing audience that uses messaging services daily.

WeChat breaks 700 million MAU

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Mobile messaging apps are massive. The largest services have hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU). Falling data prices, cheaper devices, and improved features are helping propel their growth.
• Messaging apps are about more than messaging. The first stage of the chat app revolution was focused on growth. In the next phase, companies will focus on building out services and monetizing chat apps’ massive user base.
• Popular Asian messaging apps like WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE have taken the lead in finding innovative ways to keep users engaged. They’ve also built successful strategies for monetizing their services.
• Media companies, and marketers are still investing more time and resources into social networks like Facebook and Twitter than they are into messaging services. That will change as messaging companies build out their services and provide more avenues for connecting brands, publishers, and advertisers with users.

In full, this report:

• Gives a high-level overview of the messaging market in the US by comparing total monthly active users for the top chat apps.
• Examines the user behavior of chat app users, specifically what makes them so attractive to brands, publishers, and advertisers.
• Identifies what distinguishes chat apps in the West from their counterparts in the East.
• Discusses the potentially lucrative avenues companies are pursuing to monetize their services.
• Offers key insights and implications for marketers as they consider interacting with users through these new platforms.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the future of messaging apps.