It seems that Chinese people’s love for WeChat has almost no limits as the app’s monthly active users is quickly nearing the billion-level. Tencent’s interim financial report shows that the combined MAU of Weixin (the original Chinese version) and WeChat (the international version) has hit 963 million, a 19.5% YoY increase as compared with last year’s 806 million.
Growing at the current speed, Weixin/WeChat is expected to hit one billion MAU by Q3 or Q4 this year. If so, the app will be ranked as one of few social networking giants that have passed the milestone, along with Facebook and WhatsApp.
Tencent, the company behind WeChat, recorded a stellar H1 this year with revenue grew 57 percent to RMB106.158 billion ($15.67 billion) and profit hit RMB32.802 billion. As usual, the internet giant remains vague about how much money WeChat is making, but the app sits behind online gaming and social advertising, the star revenues of the report.
Despite the encouraging growth, the company is facing intensifying pressure in how to sustain stable user growth in the long term. One problem stood in their way is the askew user base towards Chinese-speaking chatters. Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are still top regions where the app prevails.