Tencent's WeChat Hits 1 Billion Milestone as Lunar New Year Boosts Monthly Active Users (scmp.com) 25
WeChat hit the milestone of one billion monthly active users during the Lunar New Year in February, a "remarkable number" according to Tencent Holdings chief executive Pony Ma Huateng who disclosed the figure at a Two Sessions media briefing in Beijing on Monday. From a report: The user numbers are up from 980 million in the third quarter of 2017, as reported in Tencent's third quarter results. More than 688 million WeChat users sent or received digital versions of hongbao, the traditional Chinese red packet containing cash and given as a gift during the new year holiday season, pushing the monthly active users of WeChat hongbao to 800 million, Ma revealed on Saturday, as reported by Chinese tech media 36Kr.
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"You Chat, We Record"
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But, at least its better than them going "pee pee in our coke".
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Why are we hearing about this?
Because, whether you like it or not, WeChat, or something like it, is the future.
WeChat is like voice, text, Facebook, Instagram, Visa, MasterCard, Venmo, and PayPal, all rolled into one with plenty of additional features.
Many Chinese no longer bother to carry cash at all. Some street vendors no longer accept cash, since 99% of their customers pay with WeChat, and cash raises the risk of robbery.
WeChat has almost entirely replaced SMS text messages in China, and most voice calls go through WeChat as well.
Tencent (Score:3)
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Stop helping the Chinese machine make money.
I'd rather help 'the Chinese' than the Americans, who also harvest all of the information they can and prosecute real physical warfare all across the world along with the cyber warfare their government also lies about..
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I dunno, the Chinese instituted the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of 45 million Chinese peasants in just 4 years (1958-1962). They'd do it again if it were "for the good of China".
How about we compare some facts and figures before we start automatically thinking China is some kind of savior, ok?
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I dunno, the Chinese instituted the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of 45 million Chinese peasants in just 4 years (1958-1962).
Most estimates for the death toll from TGLF [wikipedia.org] put it around "only" 30 million.
There was nothing "systematic" about it. It was gross economic incompetence that caused the famine, not intentional policy.
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Lunar New Year? (Score:2)
So aew there a lot of people on the moon these days?
I personally celebrate the Persian new year (Naw Ruz) - March 20/21
Trustworthy? (Score:3)
The Chinese government has shutdown all the major foreign competitors to WeChat in China. Perhaps this means WeChat is the only that gave them a backdoor. Or perhaps it's giving them a chance to grow big enough that they can compete with the foreign giants, and then a backdoor can be added later. Why would I install their software on my phone or laptop? This is a country whose police are so tapped in to everything that find anybody within their borders in a matter of minutes using everybody's CCTV and facial recognition from photos everybody has to provide to the government (e.g. national ID or visas).
To be honest I did use this app a few years ago when I lived in China. But now I'm back in the West there's nobody who uses WeChat, so it went 88 pretty quickly.
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WeChat vs WeeChat (Score:2)