2021 WeChat Roadmap
【Posted on: 2021 February】
Tencent held its annual WeChat flagship conference in Guangzhou, the app’s birthplace. The founder of WeChat, Allen Zhang shared some performance data and mapped out future plans.
He said that currently, some 1.09 billion users open the WeChat app on a daily basis. Among the 780 million people using the Moments functionality－a virtual space to share one’s daily updates－some 100 million items now appear as video content. 360 million of them read articles from Official Account and 400 million of them use Mini Program on a daily basis.
Key Insights from the conference:
- Mini program to boost business growth
- WeChat Pay Scoring Model Offering New Opportunities
- Making WeChat search a user habit
- Mini program to boost business growth – 400M+ DAU & 100%+ Increased Annual GMV
Mini programs were first pioneered by Tencent in 2017. Unlike traditional apps, they reside within WeChat and can be accessed on-demand to perform a variety of functions like food ordering, ride-hailing, ticket purchasing, and more. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated Mini Program to be a part of our daily life. The number of active mini-program and mini-programs with transactions increased by 75% and 68% respectively last year.
WeChat Mini Programs, which allows users instant access to enterprise services while creating tremendous value to merchants and service providers, has maintained strong momentum in its fourth year of operations. With brands leveraging the services to facilitate consumer interaction amid the COVID-19, Mini Programs’ average daily active users exceeded 400 million. Total sales (GMV) more than doubled over last year, while the number of Mini Programs used per user and the average transaction value increased by 25% and 67% year-on-year respectively. Today, the services are used in a variety of sectors with transportation, department stores, apparel, and sporting goods leading the growth. In the future, Mini Programs will cross-promote user traffic more seamlessly with Weixin Channels to provide greater value to businesses and consumers.
- WeChat Pay Scoring Model Offering New Opportunities, TRUST is the keyword for WeChat pay in 2020
The number of users on WeChat Pay Score has exceeded 240 million, saving users over 200 billion RMB in deposits, and more than 10 million users have used the shipment-before-payment service when ordering express delivery.
WeChat Pay Scoring Model offers new opportunities, including No-deposit Rental, No-deposit Hotel, Enjoy First & Pay Later and Smart Retail. Currently, WeChat Pay Scoring Model has covered more than 1,995 brands in five major categories, including shared rentals, shopping & entertainment, transportation, lifestyle services, and accommodation booking. WeChat Pay continues to grow its international reach with the strong growth of Chinese outbound tourism, with cross-border payment services now offered in over 60 markets.
Make WeChat search a user habit
WeChat improved its search functions in 2020 to help users navigate easily through its massive ecosystem and will continue to improve the user experience this year, integrating more content, services, and brand-related functions. Services and content of mini programs will also be shown directly in search results.
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