WECHAT IS SEEKING NEW USERS OUTSIDE OF MAINLAND CHINA

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With more then 400 million active users it is not surprising that WeChat is starting to gain momentum in markets outside of China. To bolster its world domination, Tencent is strategically targeting large and growing markets, starting with India in 2012 with help of famous Bollywood stars. To help market the popular social communication app to Europe and South America they have recruited Lionel Messi - football star from Argentina. They have also launched an ad campaign in South Africa poking fun at Mark Zuckerberg (pun intended). Wechat now supports a wide variety of languages such as Indonesian, Spanish, Hindi and Russia. Wechat has even set up an office in San Francisco to further its push in to the lucrative US market.

Marketing overseas is not the only expansion effort being made by Tencent to push Wechat to more users, some strategic acquisitions and investments have been made such as South Korea’s Kakao Talk (South Korea’s Wechat) and there is rumoured investment into Snapchat also.

It will be interesting to see how Wechats international expansion will develop over the coming months, and whether an app that is tailored to Chinese communication habits will gain favour in different markets.

Article: Toni Kostanic