Tencent’s WeChat (Weixin in China) app is one of the most popular messaging applications available on the market today and has almost single-handedly helped tranform Tencent into China’s most valuable internet company.
WeChat recently launched its gaming platform on iOS and Android. Five of these mobile games released for Weixin in China in August have passed 570 million total downloads according to the company, downloads that consist of China alone.
While WeChat has many rivals in the messaging space — all of which we cover here on TruTower — one of its main rivals is Japanese messaging platform LINE, which offers over 30 games to its 300 million users worldwide, and passed 200 million downloads in September. Weixin’s number of downloads are a great representation of just how large the mobile market in China really is.
There’s also South Korea’s KakaoTalk and the United States’s Tango, both of which offer localized gaming on their own messaging platforms, as well as stickers and other features. Tango has even integrated its messaging with music as each app looks to stand out from the many others on mobile and PC operating systems.