Tencent’s WeChat team celebrated WeChat Mini Programs’ third Anniversary by revealing that total transaction value generated on Mini Programs has exceeded 800 billion RMB in 2019, an increase of 160% year-on-year and a clear demonstration of the platform’s tremendous business value, said the company. The announcement took place at the 2020 WeChat Open Class PRO event in Guangzhou, the flagship conference for business partners and developers where Tencent shares successful business cases and technological upgrades across the WeChat smart lifestyle ecosystem.
WeChat Mini Programs, which give users instant access to enterprise services and create tremendous business value to merchants and service providers, were pioneered by WeChat in 2017 and today attracts over 300 million active daily users. In 2019, the average number of Mini Programs used per user increased 98% and the average usage increased 45%. In 2020, WeChat Mini Programs will focus on empowering business ecosystems and opening up more capabilities for developers including live streaming.
The firm launched its first research report about the significant use and economic influence of QR codes – The Power of the QR Code – The WeChat Economic Impact Report 2020 and highlights how WeChat and QR codes help connect business and society. For businesses, the use of QR codes by WeChat has multiplied touchpoints to improve customers engagement leading to tremendous business success. It also brings innovative ways of doing business and fosters a startup culture and eco-system in China. Mini Programs have lowered costs and improved the efficiency of setting up new business. Today, a total of 79.4% of small to mid-merchants in China are WeChat Pay users while WeChat has been identified as directly and indirectly creating 26.1 million job opportunities.
WeChat Pay continues to grow its international reach with the strong growth of Chinese outbound tourism, with cross-border payment services now offered in more than 60 markets.
WeChat Work, the company’s dedicated product for work communication, showcased its 3.0 version with enhanced connection capabilities with WeChat and more tools to help enterprises improve efficiency. The product now serves more than 2.5 million companies and 60 million monthly active users.
Allen Zhang, Founder of WeChat, shared his observations on the wider impact of technology and his thoughts for WeChat’s future development. “At WeChat, we used to focus on perfecting every feature we launched. Today, we are more focused on how to prioritise and dedicate our efforts to creating value for users and customers,” Zhang said to developers over video at the conference. “With the rapid development of mobile Internet in recent years, everyone is online at all times, facing massive amounts of information and significant challenges,” he added. “Through our own efforts and open collaboration with all partners and players across the industry, we are committed to exploring emerging issues, as well as addressing the challenges facing WeChat and the industry.”
