China’s messaging app Wechat has hit 600 million monthly active users as of Q2 this year, the parent company Tencent announced in an interim financial report. The new figure for Q2 2015 marked a 37% YOY growth from 438 million in Q2 2014, and up from 549 million in Q1 this year.
Available in more than 20 language versions, WeChat now operates in more than 200 countries and regions.
Although the company is continuing its efforts to drive user engagement in overseas markets, especially in emerging Asian markets, users from Mainland China still account for a dominat proportion of the whole user base. Research from WeChat integrated agency Curiosity China shows that the app has covered more than 90% of smartphones in China as of the Q1 this year.
The average age of WeChat users is 26 years old. Overall 97.7% of the users are under 50, while the users aged between 18 to 36 represent 86.2% of the total, A Curiosity China report indicates.
The app has an unbalanced gender distribution with 64.3% of the users recorded as male and 35.7% are female. In terms of occupation, private enterprises employees, self-employed people, students and public services workers account for a dominant number of the users.
Tencent’s older chat app QQ Mobile had 627 million monthly active users, a 20% increase YOY in the reporting period, whereas its desktop-based counterparts QQ IM and Qzone both recorded a stagnating increase of only 2%.
Tencent’s total revenue climbed 19% YOY to 23,429 million RMB ($3,832 million USD) as of Q2 this year. Of the total amount, social networks revenue increased 18% YOY to 5,458 million RMB, mainly driven by growth in subscription as a result of improved mobile privileges and digital content.
Image credit: Curiosity China, ShutterStock