Driving Business and Culture through Mobile Apps

WeChat has also spurred international interest expanding into China. They have effectively provided a method of testing the Chinese market through allowing U.S. companies and the broader market to gain an understanding for and how to market to active Chinese consumers.

by Tosin Adeniji, Sam Haveson, Rebecca Kim, Maximillian Kaye

Consumer behavior in the U.S. is driven by a wide variety of platforms. We go to Ebay to shop, Facebook to communicate, PayPal to manage payments, and Uber to hail cars. Far and wide these applications and services are largely fragmented. WeChat, a mobile platform launched in 2011 by parent company Tencent Holdings, has managed to supercede the mobile applications industry by combining all these core utilities of communication, e-commerce, banking and transportation under one ubiquitous platform. Unlike any digital application of the 21st century, WeChat has managed to establish themselves as the premier mobile app in China, influencing a new tech ecosystem throughout the rest of the world.

With over 800 million users and growing, WeChat is used widely in Southeast Asia, India, and South Africa, with aggressive expansion in the U.S. and Europe where WhatsApp currently dominates. Especially in the face of competition, WeChat continues to expand functionalities to meet various needs of mobile users through communication, gaming, shopping, scheduling, and banking. At Cornell Tech, many international students who hail from China depend on the platform for their everyday communications.

A Computer Science student at Cornell Tech who was born in China, and an avid user of both WhatsApp and WeChat, explains why her loyalty is towards the latter. “I have more friends and family on WeChat that I keep in touch with, so it’s easier to maintain connections. To be honest 99.9% of the time I use WeChat and have only succumbed to using WhatsApp as it is the platform I use with my classmates.” One international student echoes the thoughts of many other individuals coming from China to the U.S. for work, research, and livelihood.

WeChat has not only capitalized on its network effect for users, it has also provided tools for businesses to also thrive thus seeing a network effect for its partners. WeChat provides SME businesses with a slew of tools that help their businesses grow through advertising, communication and ease of transactions. As the company rapidly scales, they look to maximize their growth by inviting others to grow with them.

To further their commitment to these partners, Tencent began testing a new WeChat feature, Xiaochengxu, or “Little Program”, that will potentially open the gates for technology developers and entrepreneurs to give rise to a new app marketplace.  Developers can now integrate and build on top of the existing WeChat app framework. Xiaochengxu provides small businesses who don’t have the resources to develop native apps. With 40% of Chinese consumers already using this product, these companies are able to reach an audience previously untapped, in an efficient and cost effective manner.

WeChat has also spurred international interest expanding into China. They have effectively provided a method of testing the Chinese market through allowing U.S. companies and the broader market to gain an understanding for and how to market to active Chinese consumers. The value in WeChat’s existence has unlocked the potential for international companies to allocate resources to this once foreign, and now integrated consumer. 没想到!（Who could have imagined, mei2xiang3dao4)- a mobile application that harnesses the power of communication would drive cultural understanding.

Citations

BI Intelligence. WeChat Is Testing ‘lite’ App Experiences. Business Insider. N.p., 26 Sept. 2016. Web. 9 Oct. 2016.

McKenzie, Hamish. It Might Be Time to Stop Looking for the WeChat of The West. TechCrunch. N.p., 01 June 2016. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.

WeChat in Tests to Create a Versatile King of the Apps. Business Day Live. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.

WeChat is nothing like WhatsApp – and that makes it even more valuable, Lily Kuo, February 20 2014

What brands need to know about WeChat’s new app within an app program, Alexis Bonhomme, October 5 2016

Zen Soo He Huifeng. Tencent Tests New WeChat Feature Allowing In-app Access to Mobile Services. South China Morning Post. N.p., 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.