Consolidated functionality on WeChat creates economies of scale for marketers
Ordering groceries Image: michael davis-burchat |
China is leading the way in social media and e-commerce in the Asia Pacific region, according to digital marketing consultancy Econsultancy.
In Indian, Japanese and South East Asian markets social media and e-commerce platforms are fragmented, with users flitting between single-function apps, while in China the same services are consolidating onto broader platforms, like WeChat.
Western apps like Instagram, Amazon, WhatsApp and Twitter all have large individual user bases, providing good opportunities for marketers to target specific groups.
WeChat, however, offers a platform of some 600m users making payments, filtering photos, sending messages and ordering food all online. Consolidating services creates richer data for marketers and increased convenience for users from a single point of interaction.
During the height of Chinese New Year promotions more than 120m "red envelopes" were distributed each minute through WeChat alone.
The three-year old WeChat is the fifth largest online community globally, behind Facebook, Youtube, QQ and WhatsApp, and is still showing strong user acquisition both at home and abroad. The platform is pioneering China's mobile commerce market, which grew 168% to 362.2bn yuan ($58.4bn) in Q1 2015 alone, although is still far behind Alibaba's 84.5% share of mobile sales.