WeChat started cleaning up the fallacious official accounts. Many official accounts were canceled their "V" mark.

Many companies or groups have already registered their corporate accounts on WeChat to make a marketing to the Chinese market, and many of them already got a "V" mark (* It means VIP).

But on the other hand, a lot of fallacious official accounts are existing as same as Weibo. So Tencent executed a countermeasure as follows.

One day, a user receives a system notification, but this notification said as follows:

Your accounts will lose the "V" mark soon: Between your account information and its name is quite differences, so please update the information or change the account name, and after that please re-apply to get a "V" mark.



Actually, the fallacious users on WeChat is increasing day by day. So Tencent has to clean up them to keep the soundness on their service.

Similar problem also occurred on Weibo in 2010 or 2011.
And each Weibo provider has also executed many countermeasures. This problem is unavoidable thing in the development of services.


Let's keep watching the action of this as ever.


Source => Sohu IT, MyDrivers.com

The gallery of TV commercials that Tencent provides for overseas. Their overseas users already exceeded 50 million people.

As I explained before, WeChat formally entered into the Indian market, but they will also establish the subsidiary in Malaysia to enter this market soon.

According to them, WeChat already has one million users in Malaysia, but they already started to provide the TV commercial of the Malaysian version for expanding their users there as follows.


The other version is here.

They mainly are promoting the "Hold-to-Talk" feature as same as the Indian version, but the whole style of this commercial have the clear difference with Indian version.


Now WeChat is provided to the various countries, but let's check the TV commercials that are provided in each country.

- Thailand


- Indonesia


- Philippine

Other version -1 ; Other version -2

- Hong Kong


- Taiwan


- Overseas (It seems that this TV commercial is not for the specific country.)


It's very interesting that there are many various versions by each country, isn't it?


Now WeChat has over 50 million overseas users, but their rival "LINE" has about 105 million overseas users. And LINE already entered into the Chinese market, so we have to keep watching their battle in China and overseas as before.


Source => China Daily

The ad revenue of Sina Weibo was 18.8 million USD, and 34% of them were from mobile ad.

Sina published the performance reporting in the first quarter few days ago, but some number of Sina Weibo was also become clear with this.

The total revenue of Sina Weibo was 25.8 million USD in the first quarter, but this detail is as follows:

Advertising --- 18.8 million USD (34% of them were from mobile ad.)
Revenue share from Game --- 5 million USD
Professional service (Weibo Club) --- 2 million USD

About 73% of their revenue were from advertising, but this reporting emphasized that their revenue of besides ad was rapidly increasing. I think that this phrase includes their will or wish to expand the revenue from that area.


By the way, how much does the revenue of Sina Weibo contribute to all revenue of Sina now? This answer is as follows:

Ad revenue from portal site     59.9%

Ad revenue from Weibo             14.9%

Revenue from Mobile services  12.6%

Service revenue from Weibo        5.6%
(*This means "Game" and "Professional Service")

Other      5.8%




This graph said that the total revenue of Sina Weibo contributed about 20% to the all revenue of Sina. Sina is now mainly focusing on the Weibo business, but it can be said that this graph proved the result that Sina Weibo made a certain contribution.

Alibaba joined the Sina Weibo team last month, but which action will they execute together from now on? Let's keep attention to their action as before.


Source => china.com, iResearch, Performance reporting by Sina

WeChat formally entered into the Indian market. They already started the TV commercial.

As I reported before, there is a certain number of WeChat users in India, but WeChat formally entered into the Indian market to expand its users a few days ago.

Tencent held an opening event in Mumbai, and they announced that a lot of Indian companies already made the official accounts on WeChat for their marketing activity.


And Tencent already started the TV commercial in India as follows:

Tencent nominated Mr. Varun Dhawan and Ms. Parineeti Chopra as the image character of WeChat in India, and they appeared on the above commercial, and also attended the opening event.

As they referred in that commercial, it seems that Tencent will mainly promote the voice chat feature "Hold-to-Talk" in India.


According to the presentation by WeAreSocial, social media users in India were 60,545,120 people as of November 2011.

Its penetration was only 5% now, but its growth rate is 52% in a year.
And according to the other source, the number of mobile users in India is now 862.62 million people, but the rate of 3G user is only 10%.


But in a sense, it can be said that a low penetration is a big chance for frontiers. WeChat already totally have almost 400 million users and 50 million overseas users now.

India may become the key place for them.


Source => PCONLINE,  thinkdigit, indiatimes

The sales numbers of smartphone in China were 75.28 million units in the first quarter, and 83.5% of sales numbers were smartphone.

According to the report by Eguan, the sales numbers of smartphone in China were 75.28 million units in the first quarter. And it is 83.5% of whole mobile phone sales number, and it increased 141.5% compared to the last year.


According to the report by Gartner, the sales numbers of smartphone in the worldwide were 210.04 million units in the first quarter, so it can be said that one-third of smartphone were sold in China...

And according the report by MIIT, the annual sales numbers of smartphone were 258 million units, but it seems that its number will easily exceed 300 million units in this year.



And the following picture is the market share of each vendor in the first quarter.

Samsung    17.3%
Lenovo        13.1%
Coolpad      10.3%
Huawei        10.1%
ZTE                6.9%
Apple             6.4%
K-touch        4.3%
Gionee          3.8%
HTC               3.1%
OPPO            2.9%






Samsung got 17.0% market share, and they kept the top position in Chinese smartphone market, but Motorola and Nokia couldn't ranked in at this time.

HTC also downed their ranking compared to a few years ago, and it can be said that "replacing the old with the new" was  evidently occurred in Chinese smartphone market.



Xiaomi also has the chance of ranking in the top 10 vendors, and a lot of the other vendors also have the chance of it in future.

I'm also looking forward to watch the trend of this market from now on.


Source => Eguan

Facishare published the business version of WeChat. Is this a sign that the ESN market will accelerate in China again?

As you know, WeChat is the one of most popular communication tools in China. And many companies already use it as a marketing tool to develop the Chinese market.

And this time, Facishare started to provide the business version of WeChat.

    




This word of "business version" means that it is used as a corporate internal system like the enterprise social networking(ESN) tool.


Well, why isn't it provided by Tencent, but is provided by Facishare?


Tencent has provided the business version of QQ "Biz QQ" for a long time, they were seeking the business partner of it to accelerate its business. And the end of March, they targeted some companies as an its business partner, but it seems that Facishare was the one of them.

And on the other hand, Facishare is a company of providing ESN system in China, and they were invested from IDG last year as the series A.

QQ has over 800 million active users per a month, and actually people in China use it as a business communication tool. But the business version of QQ is not so popular compared to the generic QQ.

So Tencent was (is) seeking the business partner to accelerate the BtoB market, and it seems that this business version of WeChat is the next step of the business collaboration.


As I explained before, the ESN market is becoming gradually hot in China. And according to the report by CCW Research, the market scale of ESN increased 246% compared to the last year in 2012. And some researcher said that 2013 will become the year that the ESN market is dramatically growing in China.

How will they progress from now on? Let's keep attention to them as ever.


Source => Sina Weibo, 21CN, 21cbh

Tencent published the performance reporting of the first quarter. The active users of WeChat increased to 194.4 million people.

Tencent published the performance reporting of the first quarter this week.

That summary is as follows:

- Gross income  13.55 billion RMB (= 2.18 billion USD)
* It increased 40.4% compared to the last year, and increased 11.5% compared to the last quarter.

- Profit  4.07 billion RMB (= 0.66 billion USD)
* It increased 37.4% compared to the last year, and increased 17.3% compared to the last quarter.


- Instant messenger "QQ" has 825.4 million active users per a month.
* It increased 9.8% compared to the last year, and increased 3.4% compared to the last quarter.
- Peak simultaneous online users of QQ were 173.0 million people.
* It increased 3.3% compared to the last year, and decreased 1.9% compared to the last quarter.


- WeChat has 194.4 million active users.
* It increased 228.4% compared to the last year, and increased 23.1% compared to the last quarter.

- Qzone has 611 million active users.
* It increased 5.9% compared to the last year, and increased 1.4% compared to the last quarter.

The number of Tencent Weibo did not exist in this report.



Tencent still continues to accelerate the overseas deployment of Wechat , but Tencent formally started to provide WeChat to Indian market.

The registered users of WeChat will exceed 400 million people soon, but it seems that the favorable of WeChat continues for the time being.


Source => TechWeb, The performance reporting by Tencent

Baidu report said that about each 70% users use Win XP and IE in China.

According to the recent report by Baidu statistics, IE8 is the most used web browser in China as of the end of April.

IE8.0            38.05%
IE6.0            17.62%
Chrome        17.07%
IE9.0            10.41%
Sogou             6.27%
IE7.0              1.73%
Qihoo 360    1.41%
Maxthon       1.25%
Firefox          1.20%






The period covered by this report is three months that is from February 2013 to April.

As mentioned above, IE8 has 38.05% market share, and it is the most used web browser in China. But the worthy of special mentions are following two things.

- IE6 is still used by 17.62% users in China.
The data by "IE6 countdown" also said that 24.0% user still use IE6 in China. About the other country, the average utilization of IE6 is less than 2%, so it can be said that China is the special circumstances of web browser.

- Chrome is rapidly growing in this three months.
Chrome had 9.06% market share in the last three months. Hence it follows that Chrome got the almost double market share compared to the previous three months.



The next picture is the market share of the PC OS in China as of the end of April.

Windows XP        70.73%

Windows 7             25.1%

Windows Vista      0.59%

Mac OS                 0.42%

Windows 2003        0.3%

Other                     2.85%




The period covered by this report is also from February 2013 to April.

Over 70% users use Windows XP in China, and other 25% users use Windows 7. Hence it follows that they totally have over 95% market share in China.

The formal support from Microsoft of Windows XP will end in next April, but Qihoo 360 announced to continue support of Windows XP instead of MS after next April.


It is the something worth seeing whether Chinese XP users will upgrade or replace their OS to other OS or not.

Anyway at this time, I think that web service provider or app developer who wants to enter Chinese market have to consider the above results.


Source => Baidu statistics

How to use the Web browser version of WeChat.

I guess that almost WeChat users are usually using it by their mobile devices. But do you know there is its Web browser version?

For using it, at first, we have to click the "Web WeChat" in the home page of mobile WeChat, and click the "Start" button after that.

And the next, we have to access the page of its Web version from your PC, and capture the QR code to the mobile device to login.

After successfully capturing the QR code, we can find the page on the mobile devices as follows, so we have to click the "OK" button to start using its Web browser version.

After that, if there is no problem, you can start to use the web version of WeChat on your PC as following picture.

To end the web version, you have to click the "Web WeChat" button on your mobile device.

This Web version is suitable to input the long message and so forth, but the feature of Web version is less than mobile version.

- It doesn't support the moments feature
- It doesn't support the feature of searching the new user
...


As I introduced before, Tencent defines WeChat as a mobile communication tool, so it may there is no update or improvement for the Web version.

But as I said above, it may be useful to input the long message and so forth. :)


Source => Web version of WeChat

Jiathis published the new report of "Chinese social media information sharing ranking". WeChat was ranked in 3rd position.

Jiathis published the new report of "Chinese social media information sharing ranking" as of April 2013.

                                      Share         Click Rate
#1  Qzone                   15.59%        30.19%

#2  Sina Weibo           14.09%        24.05%

#3  WeChat                 12.82%          0.02%

#4  Renren                     7.80%          2.03%

#5  Tencent Weibo       7.11%       13.68%

........










Jiathis added WeChat as the object of ranking from this time, but WeChat was ranked in the 3rd place for the first time.


This represents the recent power of Wechat, but it has something in our mind that their click rate is much lower than Qzone or Sina Weibo.

The user number of WeChat will be shortly over 400 million people, and a lot of companies already use WeChat as a marketing tool. So this result maybe makes the marketing people nervous, but it's important that we will also continue to watch the trend of this after next month.


Source => Jiathis

In 2012, Tablet PC shipments were 10.31 million in China. What kind of situation is Surface Pro that started to sell in China last month?

Eguan published the new report that is written about the sales status of Tablet PC in China as follows.

According to this report, Tablet PC shipments were 3,197,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2012 in China, and it increased 35.2% compared to the last year. And their shipments were 10.31 million units in throughout the year for 2012, and it increased 60.5% compared to 2011.

According to the report by IDC, Tablet PC shipments of worldwide were 52.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, so it can be said that the share of shipments in China was about 6.1% of the worldwide.

But Eguan said that 2013 will become the year of explosive growth for Tablet PC. Actually, many Android Tablet was already shipped to the market in China, and iPad is also welcomed as the status from many people.

And Microsoft also started to sell "Surface Pro" in China from last month.

But according to the sources, the selling status of Surface Pro is not so good. A staff of GOME said that its sales numbers are one-tenth of iPad.
I think this main reason is the price of it. The price of Surface Pro is 6588 RMB, and it is much expensive than iPad(= 3688 RMB).

We have to continue watching the market status of Tablet PC in China, and we also have to watch the strategy of Microsoft for Surface Pro in the future.


Source => Eguan, Wangyi Finance

The biggest Chinese SNS "Renren" have 280 million registered users. And they started to provide own chat tool "Tongxueshuo".

Renren is the one of biggest SNS provider in China, and they got the high popularity in the recent research as I introduced before. And according to a report, Renren have 280 million registered users as of the end of March.

User distribution map of area in China

East China : 31%

(Shanghai, Jiangsi, Zhejiang...)

South China : 17%

(Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi...)

North China : 15%

(Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin...)

Middle China : 12%

(Henan, Hubei, Hunan...)

Southwest China : 9%

(Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou...)

Northwest China : 7%

(Shaanxi, Qinghai, Gansu...)

And they have 110 million PC active users and 26 million mobile active users.

The ratio of male to female - 56% : 44%

User distribution by age:

90's or later     45%

80's                    35%

70's or earlier  20%

Next is the utilization rate by each mobile devices.

Android have 55.6% share, and they won the first place. But it seems that this share does not include access by feature phone, and it's not counted access to WAP page.

The next picture is the list of corporate accounts in Renren.

According to this report, there are 150,000 corporate accounts in Renren, and the user checks the 3 corporate pages daily on average.

The next picture is the summary of posting in a day.

The summary of daily post:

[Tweet]

From PC - 15.8 million times

From Mobile - 13.2 million times

[Picture]

From PC - 12.3 million times

From Mobile - 5.2 million times

[Diary]

From PC - 0.78 million times

From Mobile - 0.47 million times

The last picture is the data of tweet with location information.

According to this report, there are 1.7 million posts that include the location information daily in Renren, and its cumulative number is over 700 million posts.

Well, they recently started to provide the their own chat tools "Tongxueshuo".

 

It seems that this chat tool focuses to have the communication in the same university, and this user has to register their college before they start to use this.

* And they didn't support that users register the foreign college yet.

I would like to keep the attentions about the trend of Chinese SNS as same as WeChat or Weibo as ever.

Source => Sina Weibo, CNII