Time For Southeast Asia to Get Flirty: WeChat Adds ‘Look Around’ Feature on BlackBerry

The China-made messaging app WeChat launched on BlackBerry late last year, taking aim at potential users in Southeast Asia and other BB-loving areas. But WeChat for BB OS 5/6/7 lacked quite a few key features, including the popular ‘look around’ for finding people nearby with whom to chat or flirt. Now that has been rectified with WeChat v2.0 for BlackBerry, which rolls out today.

Along with ‘look around’, the updated version for BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) brings the ability to add friends by scanning QR codes, and also animated emoticon/sticker packs. This brings the app a bit closer to feature parity with the other versions for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone.

But, BlackBerry’s ancient OS will likely never be able to support video or voice calling on older hardware. To get that, early adopters of BlackBerry’s newest Z10 phone will have to wait for WeChat for BB10, which Tencent has promised is under development.

Those who want a specialized find-and-flirt app could try Tencent’s made-for-Indonesia Qute app, which is available for all major mobile platforms. There’s quite a lot of overlap between Qute and WeChat’s location-based searching in terms of their abilities, though WeChat is limited to a range of two kilometers.

The update comes as the app’s makers, Tencent (HKG:0700), are heavily promoting it via TV ads, which has helped WeChat hit the top spots on both the iOS and Android store charts. Judging by WeChat’s growth figures, we reckon that WeChat has at least one million users in Indonesia; of course, it’s locked in a tense battle against the likes of Whatsapp, Line, and KakaoTalk, for the affection of young mobile users in the country.

WeChat v2.0 is now on BlackBerry World here, but has not yet arrived on the WeChat homepage.