Tencent’s WeChat now has 100m users outside China

It looks like there’s no stopping WeChat. The social instant messaging service from Chinese internet giant Tencent now has 100-million registered users outside China, double what it had just three months ago.

In fact, the service has added 30-million foreign users since it last announced its user numbers just over a month ago.

It also means that WeChat is well on its way to catching up with Whatsapp in terms of popularity. Combined with Weixin (the name of the service in China, along with a few additional features), the service now has 235.8-million monthly active users, representing a 176.8% increase over the past year.

Whatsapp meanwhile recently revealed that it has over 300-million active users.

The two are also competing on the feature front, with Whatsapp having recently rolled out one touch push-to-talk.

When it comes to emerging markets however, WeChat may just have stolen a march on its American rival. Outside of China, it’s seriously popular in places like Hong Kong, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. And, as The Next Web reports, it was the most downloaded app on App Stores in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey in July.

WeChat is free and offers features including the above-mentioned push-to-talk, video chat, as well as image, video and music sharing. You can also choose to communicate one-on-one, or within closed social networks through the “Moments” feature.