China’s hugely popular social media platform WeChat, which can be used to chat with friends, do shopping, pay bills, and much more, has hit 1bn user accounts worldwide.
According to the Financial Times, these figures relate to the number of accounts and not the number of individuals users – as WeChat users can open multiple accounts. Nonetheless, the amount shows just how dominant the app is, especially in its home market.
Tencent, the internet giant which owns WeChat, reported an annual user account growth of 15.8 per cent back in September 2017. At around the same time, the platform boasted 963m monthly active user accounts.
WeChat is often used by Chinese migrants abroad to keep in touch with those back in China. As a result, according to an analyst, most of the app’s growth is likely to have been seen abroad in Southeast Asia, Europe, and the US.
Last year, Tencent launched a suite of advertising solutions to enable US marketers to engage with Chinese consumers using its platforms around the world in order to pounce on this international growth.