Lei Jun: WeChat Has Done a Great Job

On stage at the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) in Beijing this morning, Lei Jun (pictured), CEO and founder at Xiaomi, was posed a question by the audience on his thoughts about WeChat and his company’s own social messaging offering, Miliao. Lei Jun was quick to compliment Tencent founder and CEO Pony Ma and team for a job well done with WeChat, which has nearly 400 million registered users. He said he didn’t have the intention to bootlick Pony Ma, but nonetheless thinks a good product should be given credit. He said (translation ours):

Being in the same space, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re competitors and we don’t have to bash each other.

While saying WeChat has been doing a great job so far, Lei Jun is hoping that users can give Miliao a chance. He said Miliao (which is called MiTalk outside of China) offers different benefits to users. For example, he claims that Miliao is much more battery efficient than WeChat. He paints a picture that Miliao is like Apple’s Mac OS, which has a smaller market share but can offer great value to users. Miliao comes preinstalled on all Xiaomi’s phones.

Lei Jun said in his GMIC speech that Xiaomi uses word-of-mouth marketing, but stressed that in order to get the word spread, it’s a must that a company makes great products. While many people say that Xiaomi knows how to create demand and buzz in the market, Lei Jun disagrees that that’s the priority, saying that Xiaomi is only focused on building great products. Lei Jun is here to speak because he is a part of the Great Wall Club team that runs GMIC.

Lei Jun isn’t the first tech influencer in China who has publicly given his thumbs up to WeChat. Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma also recently gave his “attaboy” to Tencent’s smash-hit mobile app.