WECHAT AND WEIBO THE TWO BIG GIANTS IN CHINA SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
May 08, 2018 By NetFin
It is well known that WeChat and Sina Weibo are two of the most successful apps in China Social Media Marketing. Tencent and Sina Weibo recently released their growth figures for 2017. The results clearly show the huge evolution for two of the principal social media applications in China as well as their last tendencies.
SINA WEIBO
Sina Weibo has 376 millions of monthly active users that represent 27% increase compared to the results in 2016. Among them 165 million are active daily (+25% compared to 2016). Like all Chinese social media apps, Weibo is used massively from a smartphone: 92% of usage is generated by mobile devices.
Division of users by age:
Less than 18 years: 15.7%
18 – 22 years: 27.6%
23 – 30 years: 38.60%
31 – 40 years: 12.6%
More than 41 years: 5.6%
Gender:
Female: 43.7%
Male: 56.3%
Undoubtedly the first Chinese social media application, WeChat has continued to establish itself as the most used social media platform in 2017.
If in 2018, during Chinese New Year, WeChat reached one billion users, in 2017 there were 902 million daily active users over the first 9 months (+17% compared to 2016).
All age groups use WeChat and WeChat marketing. Millennials represent the majority of WeChat users, but seniors are also represented with 50 million people between 55 and 70 years old.
38 billion messages were sent each day in 2017, 25% more than in 2016. The voice messages also took a larger share with 6.1 billion voice messages per day (+26%).
MUCH MORE THAN A MESSAGING SERVICE
In 2017, WeChat came out of it image of messaging service to become a 360 communication platform and not just messages. 205 million calls were made (+106%), the number of videoconferences per person per month also skyrocketed (+135%). The average duration of these calls also increased by 114%; to an average of 139 minutes per person per month.
Like the Western social networks, the video was popular in 2017 on WeChat with 68 million videos published on Moment (the newsfeed of WeChat) per day (+22% compared to 2016).
The number of active official accounts is now 3.5 million (+14%). The latter are followed, according to Tencent, by 797 million active followers (+19%).
THE USE OF WECHAT OUTSIDE CHINA
The use of WeChat outside China has been democratized just as the number of international trips has increased. As a result Tencent notes a 62% increase of its users who used WeChat from outside China during the 2017 Chinese New Year. The most popular international destinations in 2017 were the nearby regions (Southeast Asia, East Asia, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan) then North America and finally the countries of Europe.
Finally, the practice that has grown the most in 2017 is undoubtedly the payment in offline via WeChat Pay with +280% compared to 2016.