WeChat’s meteoric rise aids growth of other Chinese apps

The rapid rise of Tencent’s instant messaging and social app WeChat is well documented. Less well-known however, is the fact that its popularity has had a massive upside for other Chinese apps, especially since the launch of its photo sharing feature.

Take search giant Baidu’s PhotoWonder app, for instance. The rise of photo sharing on WeChat has propelled it to 1.6-million downloads with 4 300% growth rate.

According to Android app store Wandoujia, which has started rolling out monthly trend reports on China’s mobile market based on downloads from its store, Photopowder’s popularity was largely driven by a feature that allowed them to upload a photo which would then match them with a celebrity. While the actual results were highly varied (apparently some users were compared with monkeys), the app really took off once people started sharing it on WeChat.

Another app, called Crazy Pic Puzzle, saw even more phenomenal growth. Accrording to Wandoujia, it’s seen more than two-million downloads and seen 80 000% growth. A Chinese version of popular app Icomania, users have to guess what an image is based on the corresponding Chinese characters. A correct guess, the report notes, is “conveniently packaged for sharing to WeChat”.

With 70-million WeChat users now living outside China, the service could also provide a massive boost to Chinese apps in international markets.

If that’s to be the case however, those apps may need to start appealing more to foreign markets.

The report notes, for instance, that three of the top five apps help people save money (through helping them discover free Wi-Fi, make cheaper phone calls and hunt down group buying discounts). All three currently seem to be aimed squarely at the Chinese market but all (perhaps barring cheap phone call service AliCall, which could get a lot of opposition from telcos) have the potential for widespread use around the world.

The China App Index: Photo-Sharing via WeChat Sparks Viral Growth (June 2013) from WandouLabs

[Source: The Next Web]