Weixin, which recently adopted the English name, WeChat, is marketing strongly on Facebook. I’m seeing ads on every other refresh on my Facebook page and that’s not all. For new users of WeChat you can even claim free Facebook credits if you sign up for an official ID — either through your phone number or by connecting it with Facebook. You will then receive a pin to claim up to 1,000 free Facebook credits. More details can be found here.
We also last reported that WeChat, according to Tencent’s CEO Pony Ma, has hit more than 100 million users. WeChat’s step to move into English clearly shows its ambition to scoop up international users. The move appears to be working as I find more and more of my non-Chinese friends hopping on to WeChat. Most, if not all, find that the app is pretty awesome. It is actually, and it comes with more emoticons which does make text conversation fun. Emoticons work very well in Asia.
WeChat isn’t just in English and Chinese but it is also available in Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Portuguese, and Vietnamese. Its Facebook campaign looks pretty gung ho with localized pages set up for India, Thailand, and Malaysia. While Western companies find it hard to break into China, I’m sure Chinese company will find it tough to internationalize a product too. But WeChat looks to be executing things pretty well so far. So watch out, team Whatsapp.
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