Tencent TV ad to get more people talking about Wechat
WECHAT — a social messaging application created by China’s Tencent — wants to increase the number of its users in Malaysia’s growing market for smartphone apps.
It has started by advertising its app on Malaysian TV.
“This will allow more people and partners to be aware of WeChat, to love WeChat, to use WeChat, and to partner with WeChat,” said Louis Song, Tencent International Business Group country manager for Malaysia and Singapore.
“There is a base of users locally and we want to gain momentum here,” he said.
The TV commercial features Taiwanese celebrity asian dancing king Show Luo, and singer, actress and talkshow host Rainie Yang.
Tencent did not say how big its WeChat user base in Malaysia is but it crossed the 200 million user mark worldwide about four months ago. It has since set its sights on hitting the 300 million users target.
Song said Malaysia is an important market for Tencent. Its geographical proximity to China and the cultural similarities between the two countries make Malaysia a natural choice for Tencent’s overseas market expansion.
“Malaysia is a very strong market, and like with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand, we are witnessing strong growth here in mobile application platforms,” Song said.
WeChat is a free but robust social messaging app that not only offers text and voice messaging, but location-based services and a photo album as well.
The app provides an innovative user-experience by infusing social networking capabilities into several versatile features, according to Tencent.
It supports 3G and 4G data networks, as well as WiFi. It is available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Symbian platforms.