6 months after a post called Messaging App: The War for Users on Mobile Goes On! Chat applications are still fighting for users.
Whatsapp is the winning currently the race even though WeChat and Line are very powerful. We should see a fight mostly between Whatsapp and WeChat as of now.
The app called Facebook Messenger has lost some ground since May 2013 compared to Whatsapp.
WeChat launched a French version in October.
Click on the map to zoom / enlarge
Since the last version 5.0.3.17, the French speaking community, lovers of Twitter, are now able to use WeChat in French. The potential is huge in France, the country of Minitel, bip bop, Concorde… Believe it or not French people love technology and innovation. The Chinese app has 500 million users of which half active. The chat app is ranked second after Line (this ranking does not includes Facebook).
Depuis la version 5.0.3.17 mise en ligne le 24 octobre 2013, la communauté française, adepte de Twitter, est maintenant capable d’utiliser l’application mobile WeChat qui connait un succès phénoménal en Asie. L’application de messagerie instantanée a une base de 500 millions d’utilisateurs dont la moitié active, elle se place juste derrière Whatsapp et devant Line.
Laiwang is a new mobile application now launched and will compete with wechat, whatsapp, wemeet, line, twitter, sinaweibo, and facebook. It is very similar to WeChat.
Whatsapp is the most international free chat app with over 350 million users (monthly active users representing more than half of this figure). This application was the first messaging application on Quarter 1 of year 2013. Half the countries of Europe like Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and Chile, and Israel are using Whatsapp before any other chat applications.
We know now why Google didn’t purchase Whatsapp: the firm of Moutain View released a standalone application of Google Hangouts a few weeks ago.
WeChat gathers about 350 million users mainly in China and a few million mostly in Malaysia, India, and the Philippines. Growth is strong thanks to fast adoption among users and heavy marketing efforts with the use of image of stars and TV commercials.
Facebook Messenger is used in many countries among them the United States and Argentina.
Skype mobile app is very successful in Bulgaria, and Russia. This is quite surprising that American users don’t use so much this Microsoft service as Russian users do.
Viber app has the lead in Egypt, Greece, Ireland.
Line with about 160 million is spreading in a few countries of Asia: Japan, the Home country, Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan.
Nimbuzz is successful mainly in India, Kakao Talk in the Home country of South Korea but also Indonesia.
Since our last review, Libon added voice message and picture sharing; Google released a standalone application of Hangouts; China Mobile launched a new chat mobile application called Jego.
TV Commercial in India and Philippines have strong impact on downloads on Google Play Platform: on May 19th, WeChat was doing better than Facebook and Whatsapp in India, Malaysia, Mexico and Philippines.
Source: Appannie
Posted in Chinese Internet, Internet Strategy
Tagged 2020, app, chat, Facebook, mobile, value, wechat, whatsapp
In our review of competitors of WeChat, we explained how successful Whatsapp was and the fact Google should advance their messaging solutions.
Today, with Facebook Messenger and Skype, Whatsapp is the most international messaging application. Line, Kakao Talk and WeChat have still a majority of local users (more or less 85% for WeChat).
With Facebook Home, Facebook is also very focused on offering the best experience they can on mobiles, the main access to the Internet. Google cannot afford to wait too long.
Several Chat Applications
We believe Google doesn’t have to purchase Whatsapp but for sure Google must have a better mobile strategy in order to dominate the world of data.
Posted in Internet Strategy
Tagged Acquisition, chat, google, messaging, mobile, value2020, wechat, whatsapp
Facebook Home is a quick response to the growth of chat app including the successful WeChat app.
WeChat app is not only a messaging /chat mobile app but also a private social network. This network has over 300 million users and growing faster than Facebook. Here is a heatmap, the first one in the world published by TechinAsia back in January 2013.
The new version of WeChat offers improvements on the usage of chat.
1/ 2/ Live Chat & Invite to Group Chat via QR Code.
3/ Search through chat history.
4/ Backup of data: this is now possible and makes easier the transfer of data to a new smartphone.
Equipment in smartphone in Africa is low. Therefore, African players like Mxit, the current leader, have an advantage of the habits of the users.
In countries with more smartphones like South Africa, Chinese app WeChat is gaining users. VALUE2020 consultants estimate that the total population of WeChat users will reach 1 million this semester.
WeChat’s enormous size (15MB), however, works against it, especially in Africa where data is expensive and speeds might be very slow at times.
VALUE2020 - Internet Market 
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