WeChat is a social media (instant messaging, commerce and payment services) application developed by Tencent. It was first released in 2011 and by 2016 it was one of the largest standalone messaging apps by monthly active users, with over 889 million active users.
Why is Wechat so popular among mobile internet users? Whats the key features for Wechat to win the market in such a short period? Below please kindly find the main reasons:
WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, sharing of photographs and videos, and location sharing. It can exchange contacts with people nearby via Bluetooth, as well as providing various features for contacting people at random if desired.
WeChat supports users who wish to register as an official account, which enables them to push feeds to subscribers, interact with subscribers and provide them with services. There are three types of official accounts: service account, subscription account and enterprise account. Once users as individuals or organizations set up a type of account, they cannot change it to another type. By the end of 2014, the number of WeChat official accounts had reached 8 million. Official accounts of organizations can apply for verified (at cost of 300 RMB), official, public accounts.
WeChat supports users to post image and text, share music (associated with QQ Music or any web based music service) and article, as well as comment and "like" in the Moments. Privacy is extremely important in WeChat, only the friends from the user's contact are able to view their Moments' contents and comments.
WeChat Pay is a digital wallet service incorporated into WeChat, which allows users to perform mobile payments and send money between contacts. Users who link their credit card can only make payments to vendors, it cannot be used to top up WeChat balance. WeChat Pay can be used for digital payments, as well as payments from participating vendors.
For work purposes, companies and business communication, a special version of WeChat called Enterprise WeChat (or Qiye Weixin) was launched in 2016. The app is meant to help employees separate work from private life.
WeChat allows people to add friends by a variety of methods, including searching by username or phone number, adding from phone or email contacts, playing a "message in a bottle" game, or viewing nearby people who are also using the same service.
(sourced: Wechat-wikipedia)