For all of those who are not familiarized with Wechat, is one of the biggest mobile applications in China and it has an estimate of 355 million active users. These technology giant as 2014 market strategy has planned to challenge Whatsapp owned by an American multinational company.
It´s not going to be an easy task since Facebook recently bought Whatsapp, but it seems the Chinese Corporation Tencent owners of Wechat are not going to give an easy battle, as Victoria Wu director of international Business for Tencent´s Wechat and responsible for its development in the US said “We are committed. Tencent is very serious about serving our users around the world.” She also mentioned that the service is going to be “stable” and “reliable”.
Now it seems they are very determined but the question now is wether they have the necessary resources to be competitive in the western countries. In a Thursday event in Silicon Valley San Francisco Wu stated that the application “can be used as a platform to promote themselves, manage customer service and even connect online businesses”
It seems users are responding quite well, Rebecca Fannin a media entrepreneur met with Victoria Wu at Standford well some professor are already considering it as an option also Vivianne Tam an important designer set up Wechat in a fashion show in New York making all the participants interact with each other as well allowing Tam interact with her business clients.
It is clear that Wechat is more dynamic and allows much more than simple text communication, it is a tool for business in China to interact and promote their products. This innovative application allows talking freely and booking taxis. Lets see how these two applications compete since right now Tencent Holdings market capitalization is 135 Billion, which is still short on Facebook´s 159 Billion. Its definately a topic to keep in mind.
Author: José Luis Almeida
Sources: China Daily, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/kindle/2014-03/17/content_17352720.htm
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