It's probably the dream of most tech moguls: to build a super-app that bundles a variety of services and holds a huge user base for as long as possible.

Elon Musk has made his ambition public by purchasing Twitter, aiming to forge it into a super-app. There have been other attempts by Asian tech giants, from South Korea's Kakao to Indonesia's GoTo, some of which have achieved good results.

However, they all want to duplicate the success of one app: WeChat.

WeChat, or Weixin in Chinese, was developed by China's tech giant Tencent. It was launched in 2011 as an instant messaging app, which allowed its users to send messages, pictures to friends and family – and later, to send voice messages and make video calls.

As of the third quarter of 2023, WeChat has 1.36 billion monthly active users – almost equaling the 1.41 billion population of China, and more than the 1.21 billion monthly active users of China's mobile internet.

It has remained one of China's most-used apps for years, despite newer arrivals getting into full swing. But how did WeChat achieve the dream of all app-makers?

 

Diversity and renovation: Not an app but a system

From the very beginning, WeChat wanted to be much more than a messaging app. It tried to diversify the functions offered, to keep the users on the platform for as long as possible.

A year after launch, WeChat unveiled Moments, enabling users to send their contacts those special life memories in the form of pictures, texts and later videos. It also allowed individuals and companies to launch subscription accounts.

Later, WeChat launched emoji stores – encouraging a number of young artists to upload their own creative works and, in some cases, to make a fortune out of it – which in turn encouraged more creators to add their offerings. And the mini-game channel fits into users' idle browsing time.

But when going through the WeChat timeline, it's clear that two key functions have laid the foundations for WeChat's commercial landscape.

In 2013, it launched the WeChat Payment function – way before online transaction became the mainstream. By scanning a QR code, it's easy to make a payment or transactions to anyone.

Many vendors, store owners and private businesses started to use it, as it saved the trouble of giving change to customers – again, way before contactless payment became commonplace.

In 2014, it launched Red Envelope, based on the thousand-year-old tradition of giving envelopes to kids during the Chinese New Year. The custom was continued by enabling digital envelopes for far-flung friends and family – and gamified with a clever twist.

WeChat users can send batches of Red Envelopes to friend groups; if there are more group members than envelopes, then only those who respond fastest get the goodies. Obviously this encouraged users to be online throughout the New Year – supercharging WeChat's popularity.

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Red Envelopes became an instant success – its 2015 Spring Festival debut created 1 billion WeChat money transfers. It was also an important step for gaining trust in WeChat Payment, greatly boosting its usage. It's natural for people to enjoy the New Year vibe and interact with their friends and relatives at such an important festival. Once people had got used to sending money digitally, WeChat had managed to change not only Chinese people's way of payment, but also their New Year traditions.

Another key step was opening the platform for engineers to build 'mini programs' – effectively turning the app into an app store. Now, users can access functionality from car-hailing to ticket-booking… without leaving WeChat.

In 2022, new functions increased by 30 percent to cover more than 200 industries including tourism, entertainment, retail, medicine and education.

Evergreen in a changing world: Embedding into people's lives

While performing addition by providing different services, WeChat has also prioritized subtraction.

Efficiency of service has become the utmost concern – and since launch, it has made very few changes to the interface. Its startup picture – a silhouette of a person standing in front of the Earth – has almost never changed. It summarizes the philosophy behind WeChat's operation: embedding itself into every corner of people's lives, while minimizing the sense of its existence.

However, despite building an online world with a large userbase, WeChat doesn't take advantage by bombarding users with advertisements – the way most tech companies make a profit. Instead, it encourages companies, brands and content creators to embed their advertisement in their content, like subscriptions.

In this way, people barely feel the existence of WeChat – even if they spend hours on the platform every day. If maintaining a steady profit is the Holy Grail, the rapidly-changing digital environment is the sword of Damocles over the head of all super-apps.

In China, short video platforms have become the mainstream of social media. Apps such as Douyin – the Chinese version of TikTok, owned by the same Chinese company ByteDance – rocketed to the top amid the already fierce competition, grabbing market share from the veterans.

WeChat launched its short video channel in 2020, and within six months gained 200 million daily users. As of December 2023, the WeChat video channel's number of daily active users was second only to Douyin in China.

It has also boosted WeChat's e-commerce business, with general merchandise sales expected to exceed $14 billion in 2023.

 

WeChat limited: Can it thrive beyond China?

As successful as WeChat is as a super-app, it is mainly used in China.

Because of the differences in cultures, regulatory constraints and business models, most of the functions WeChat provides are limited to the territory of China. The country provides a big enough market, but it still stops WeChat duplicating its success beyond.

Meanwhile, in the Game of Thrones for apps, no king can rule forever. TikTok has earned global popularity; the pace of installs peaked in the first quarter of 2020 at 313 million downloads, but it has continued to grow since.

More Chinese apps are now eyeing the global market. E-commerce apps Temu and Shein are loved by Gen-Z. TikTok has unarguably become the main platform to help the young generation create their own lifestyle. ByteDance's video editing app Capcut is adopted not only by influencers but also by many official institutions to make promotional videos.

And in Asia, there are other super apps as well. Besides Kakao and GoTo, there are also India's Paytm and Singapore's Sea and Grab. The competition never ends – especially in 2024. While AI becomes the new trend, it is hard to predict how it will affect the ferocious arena of the app market.

Supervisor: Mei Yan

Chief Editor: Qian Fang

Presenter: Li Jianhua

Producer: Ai Yan

Camera/Video Editing: Tom Triebel

Script Editor: Elizabeth Mearns

Motion Graphics: Butchy Davy, James Sandifer, Ilze Juhnevica

Copy Editor: Gary Parkinson