This was before the company started revealing the number of monthly active users.Īfter a year of Tech in Asia calling the app Weixin, Tencent picked an English name for it. March 2012: Hits 100 million registered usersĪbout 14 months after launching, WeChat hit a major milestone when Tencent reported it had 100 million registered users. A one-minute video could be condensed so that it was just 1 MB in size. With Chinese people slowly shifting from 2G to 3G, WeChat ensured that videos would be shrunk down to reduce the cost of sending them when not on wifi. Seven months after launching, WeChat added video clips and a “find nearby users” function. WeChat’s first iteration had basic features: text messaging, creating voice clips, and, sending photos.Īnyone familiar with the dizzying array of features in Tencent’s other products would have guessed that WeChat would not stay on minimalist mode for long. The launch of Weixin came as Kik and WhatsApp – both released in 2010 – were gaining traction. Screw the telcos: its chat app would disrupted SMS and work on any phone and mobile service. The Next Web, the only major international news outlet to report the launch, transliterated the Chinese name and dubbed it “micro letters.”Ĭhina’s three telecoms companies already had online messaging apps that were proving popular, but Tencent wanted to bring down the telco barriers that existed between people. The new app was called Weixin in Chinese. Here’s how it looked at launch, initially only on iOS: It was a big break from Tencent’s very PC-era social networks and online gaming empire. It began quietly on this day seven years ago when Tencent – already China’s social media giant with its MSN-style QQ instant messenger and accompanying Qzone social network (with 780 million active users at the start of 2011) – made a mobile-only messaging app. January 21, 2011: Tencent debuts messaging app In a Tencent office in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, away from the company’s Shenzhen HQ, a small team started working on a mobile chat app. Here’s a potted history of China’s most essential app. Mind you, that has not stopped WeChat from competing effectively before, as evidenced in this timeline article from Steven. In other words, imho, Ant has first mover advantage. The fact is that WeChat and WeChat Pay in China is a monster but, to go global, they will have more challenges as Ant Financial has got the key partners first. So I was delighted to see that Steven Millward wrote a great piece on Tech in Asia about WeChat the other day. In fact, one other big platform of note is WeChat Pay from Tencent. That is not to say that I am ignoring the other platforms: PayPal, Stripe, PayTM and such like. " transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with persons that develop or control the following Chinese connected software applications, or with their subsidiaries.I’ve written a lot about Ant Financial – they’re a 30,000 word case study in my new book – mainly because they are the first payments platform to focus upon global reach for financial inclusion. "The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law," says the order. However, the specifics of precisely which types of transactions are to be banned is yet to be announced. US firms have 45 days from the date of the order to comply. The order also lists the lesser-known payment systems QQ Wallet, Tencent QQ, CamScanner, SHAREit, VMate, and WPS Office. The most prominent apps named are WeChat Pay and Alipay. " pace and pervasiveness of the spread in the United States of certain connected mobile and desktop applications," says the Executive Order, "and other software developed or controlled by persons in the People's Republic of China, to include Hong Kong and Macau (China), continue to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States." "At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by these Chinese connected software applications," it continues. The order says this "aggressive action" must be taken because the apps have access to the data of a large number of users. AppleInsider reports: President Trump has issued an Executive Order banning US transactions with a range of Chinese payment platform apps from February 18, 2021. By Executive Order, all US transactions with these apps must cease within 45 days. The Trump administration says that Chinese payment apps, including WeChat Pay, are a threat to national security.
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