Sogou started to provide the WeChat search service. It supports the account name search and the keyword search.

The third largest search engine provider in China 'Sogou' started to provide WeChat search service.

This search service supports the account name search and the keyword search.

  

About the account name search, it can search by the account name (displayed name on WeChat) and the account code. And if you click the displayed account name, then it will be displayed the posting history.

Last time, I explained that WeChat has not prepared the method of spreading information in the platform to the official accounts. But this search service will be useful for the official account on WeChat, because it will be able to be found by users more easily than now. It will be useful for users too, because it can help users to find the information easily what users want.

Sogou have provided the search engine since 2004 as a subsidiary of Sohu. But Tencent invested 448 million USD last September, and Tencent now has 36.5% stock of Sogou. They started to grope for the collaboration from that time, and this search service is surely the one of their result.

As I mentioned above, Sogou is the third largest search engine provider in China. And according to the recent report by CNZZ, their market share is 12.44% as of May 2014.

The difference with the two largest companies(Baidu and 360) is still big, but I think that this service can help to reduce that difference. Because WeChat will not provide such search result to that two largest companies.

Let's keep watching the future situation of this.

Source => WeChat search service by Sogou

WeChat strengthened the regulation of the marketing activities for the official account, and also published the regulations of the penalty.

Recently Tencent announced that they set a limit of the friend number of WeChat, and its number was 5000 users at most. And this time, they also published the regulations of the penalty for the official account on WeChat. According to them, the official accounts who force and recommend to their followers are rapidly increasing. So they decided to discipline to such heinous official accounts as follows.

According to this regulation, in case that the official account will be alerted the first time, then that official account will be stopped their activity during 7 days. And if the official account will be alerted 4 times, then the official account will be frozen eternally.

Actually, Tencent have expressed that WeChat is not the marketing platform for a long time, and they have not prepared the method of spreading information in the platform to the official accounts. But on the other hand, the normal accounts can post the information to 'Moments', and it's comparatively easy to get a lot of friends by using the function of 'People Nearby' or 'Shake'. So some official accounts use the normal accounts to spread their information on 'Moments'.

Tencent recognized that the some of such official accounts are heinous accounts, so they prepared this regulation. At this stage, we don't know how strict this regulation is, but it's better that official account of WeChat don't use the words such as 'recommend forwarding this information to Moments' or related message.


Source=> The official page of WeChat for the official accounts

The MAU of mobile QQ increased to 490 million, and QQ still have more energy than WeChat.

On 14th May, Tencent published their performance reporting of the first quarter.

And according to the reporting, the monthly active users(= MAU) of WeChat increased 87% compared with the same period last year, and it was 396 million people. The MAU of WeChat on the previous period was 355 million people, so it means the MAU of WeChat increased 40 million people compared with the previous period.

As you see, WeChat keeps their power in the Chinese social media market, and Tencent said that they will continue to enhance the payment solution of WeChat as before.

But as same as the previous period, QQ still has more energy than WeChat in this market. According to this reporting, the 'mobile' MAU of QQ increased 52% compared with the same period last year, and its number was 490 million people. In the previous period, the difference of MAU between WeChat and mobile QQ was about 70 million, but this difference increased to about 100 million people in this period.

The total MAU of QQ was 848 million people in this quarter, and so it can be said that QQ is still king of Chinese social media market.

And the total MAU of Qzone was 644 million people, and the number of its mobile MAU was 467 million people. 

We or some related news site have paid attention to WeChat in particular, but I think that we also have to pay attention to QQ or Qzone, particularly their mobile area.

Source -> The performance reporting by Tencent (PDF)

The number of peak simultaneous online users on QQ exceeded 200 million people.

According to the official account on Tencent Weibo, the number of peak simultaneous online users on QQ exceeded 200 million people in the night before last.

Official said that time was 21:11 on April 11th.

According to the latest reporting by Tencent, the largest number of peak simultaneous online users on QQ was about 180 million people in the fourth quarter of 2013. And it is said that the first time of the number exceeding 100 million was on March 5, 2010.

Recently on the web news or some social media, the topic is concentrated to WeChat. But QQ had 800 million monthly active users, and they also had 426 million smartphone monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2014. The monthly active users of WeChat was 355 million people, so its number is still less than QQ in actuality.


The battle of the instant messenger market in China is heating up day by day, but it seems that the reign of Tencent in this market will still continue for a while.

I wonder if the company that can defeat Tencent will appear in this market in near future. Let's keep watching as ever.


Source => Official account on Tencent Weibo, Techweb

The monthly active users of WeChat was 355 million people as of the end of 2013, but QQ is still more welcomed than WeChat.

Yesterday, Tencent published the their performance reporting of 2013. And according to the reporting, the monthly active users (MAU) of WeChat was 355 million people as of the end of 2013 in total.

This report said the MAU increased 6% compared with the previous quarter, and it increased 121% compared with the same period last year. But they published only the total MAU number of WeChat, and they didn't published the breakdown of its number, for example the rate of China users and oversea.


And the other numbers that are related to social media are as follows:

- Monthly active users of IM (* It means 'QQ') were 808 million people.
(It decreased 1% compared to the previous period, and increased 1% compared to the year-earlier period.)

- The number of the peak simultaneous online IM was 180 million people.
(It increased 1% compared to the previous period, and increased 2% compared to the year-earlier period.)

- Monthly active users of Qzone were 625 million people.
(It increased 0.3% compared to the previous period, and increased 4% compared to the year-earlier period.)


This reporting said that the monthly active 'smartphone' users of QQ was 426 million as of the end of 2013. This number is larger than WeChat, so it may be said that QQ is still welcomed more than WeChat in China.

Few days ago, China's central bank demanded that payments made by scanning a bar code with mobile devices be halted, hitting the payment arms of Internet companies Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding.

We have to keep watching there will be what kind of influence for WeChat, QQ and their business.


Source => The performance reporting by Tencent (PDF)

CIC released the "China Social Media Landscape 2014" that can help you to understand easily the whole situation of China's social media trend.

CIC has released the graph of "China Social Media Landscape" since 2008, but its new version was also released today.

Last year, this graph was divided by 24 categories. But this year was decreasing to 18 categories.

This change detail is:
[Deleted categories]     Social Aggregator, Social Search and Social TV
[Added category]          Short-video Social
[Changed categories]  Rating & Review -> Social Life, Photo Sharing -> Photo Social, Online Travel -> Travel Social

The category of 'Social Aggregator' means the RSS reader, but as you know, Google Reader already stopped their service last year. And there are no remarkable other service, so that category itself might be deleted.

And 'Social Search' and 'Social TV' was added as the new category last year, but it may be that these weren't growing as well as they expected.

About the new added category 'Short-video Social', I think that Vine is the most popular service in the world-wide, but the similar service was becoming popular in China too from the latter half of last year.


As I said above, this graph can help you to understand the whole situation of China's social media trend. But if you look the history of this graph from 2008, it also can help you to understand the ups and downs of China's social media trend.

If you are interested in this, please check the article that I wrote last year :)


Source -> CIC

Sina Weibo went into the black in the fourth quarter of 2013 for the first time, but...

SINA corporation published the financial results in the fourth quarter of 2013, and they also published the financial results of Sina Weibo there.

According to this report, Sina Weibo went into the black in the fourth quarter of 2013 for the first time, their sales revenue was 71.4 million USD in total.

The breakdown of total revenue was composed of 56.0 million USD of ad revenue and 15.4 million USD of service revenue. Its ads revenue increased 163% compared with the year-earlier period, and its service revenue increased 114% compared with the year-earlier period.

Sina Weibo was also increasing their revenue on the second quarter and the third quarter compared with each year-earlier period, so it can be said that their sales performance has been continuously growing.

And according to the information from Financial Times, Sina Weibo prepares New York IPO in the second quarter of this year.


Judging only from their financial results and the rumor of IPO, their future seems to be rosy. But I think there are two main anxiety of them.

- The percentage of ad revenue was too high.
As everyone knows, the customer basically would like to advertise on the platform that has a lot of active users. But as I repeatedly said, Sina Weibo has continuously decreased their active users. In the interview of this financial results, the official said their active user increased to 61.4 million in December. But I feel this comment is unbelievable.


I have login to Sina Weibo everyday since 2010 to watch the number of active friend user, and I also have checked the traffic from Sina Weibo to the official site of our company every week. But as I said before, both are continuously decreasing.

I think it is high time to reconsider countermeasures to increase their active users. Otherwise they will also decrease the sponsor of advertisement.


- There are no remarkable outcome from the relationship with Alibaba.
As you know, Alibaba acquired 18% share of Sina Weibo in 586 million USD last April. And they also started alliance activity at same time, but till now, it seems that there are no remarkable outcome from it.

Alibaba is the giant company in Chinese EC industry, and they also have a lot of giant group company, such as Taobao and Alipay. So there should be a lot of method to enhance their relationship. But it seems that their remarkable outcome is only that ads posting or banner increased on Sina Weibo.

I think that they also have to consider this countermeasure in earnest.


Anyway, we have to continue watching their action as ever.


Source => Official financial report from Sina corp. , TechWeb