It seems Weixin is now making faster and longer strides towards monetization as an insider told local media that the most popular communicating tool in China would be launching a gaming platform in the wake of its public platform, new online-to-offline initiative as well as mobile loyalty program.
Weixin crossed the 200 million users mark by the middle of the year with rocketing growth. Now with a huge user base, now it might be the right time to monetize that user pool.
Weixin hasn’t confirmed the rumor yet.
On the other hand, mobile game platform created by KakaoTalk, the Korean equivalent of Weixin into which Tencent invested RMB400 million, became extreme popular under Google Play’s game category in 10 days after its initial launch. It makes sense for Weixin to draw on that successful experience.
According to iiMedia Research, Chinese mobile game market in 2011 reached RMB 3.28 billion, and was expected to surpass RMB 6 billion this year. Pony Ma, founder and CEO of Tencent once said that, Weixin is the first platform that rises from mobile Internet solely, Tencent is still exploring its profit model. Well mobile game might be a shortcut.
Currently, when coming to mobile game platform, Tencent is the biggest, followed by 91, UC, d.cn, 360 and feiliu.
news via Donews
Tencent is the biggest in mobile game platform? By what metric? It would seem that 91 has the largest accumulated downloads, unique subscriber base and possibly pageviews… please explain