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

An ambush who will beat WeChat? LBS and Chat tool "MoMo" already got over 100 million registered users.

"MoMo" is an instant messenger apps that have the feature of closely linked with LBS function.

According to the news, that "MoMo" already got the more than 100 million users. "MoMo" started their service from Aug 2011, so it means that it took around 30 months to exceed 100 million users. It took the time about twice than WeChat, but it is the fact that it's valuable thing to get the 100 million users.

And the news also said that the active users of "MoMo" was 40 million people, and the registered users increase 1 million people each in every month.

And it seems that their business performance side is also satisfactory, they already got the second round investment on Oct 2012, and it is estimated that their enterprise value is about 100 million USD.


It's the first time that I explain about this "MoMo", so I would like to introduce briefly the summary of its function.

It seems that MoMo provides the service to Android, iPhone and Windows phone users now.

As I said above, the greatest feature of "MoMo" is the linkage with LBS functions, so the top page is the "people nearby" function that is similar with WeChat has.

And on the chat page, the user can directly send the location information to other users.

Of course, the user can send the text message, and also can send the pictures, emotion icon and so forth as same as WeChat.


And MoMo also has a lot of other functions that closely linked with the LBS function. For example, it is the nearby event information, the group function of going to the same hometown and so forth.

 

MoMo also have the social function like the "Moments" on WeChat.

Last time, I said that WeChat belongs the "social media service that directed inward". But it seems that this "MoMo" also has the elements of "social media service that directed outward".

As the competitor of WeChat, I have introduced Yixin or Laiwang on this blog. But Yixin said that their target is to get the 100 million registered users after 6 months later when their service started. But there is no official announcement about this till now. And about Laiwang, they said that their target is to get the 100 million registered users till the end of 2014.

As far as looking this situation, it may be also said that the greatest rival of WeChat is this "MoMo" at this stage. I would like to keep more attention to this "MoMo" from now on.


Well, this "MoMo" can be registered from out of China too.

So the person who can understand the Chinese menu, let's try it :)
* Unfortunately, it seems that "MoMo" does not support the language besides Chinese at this stage.


Source => 21CN tech, The official page of MoMo

The battle in the lunar new year greetings of the big three social media services in China. (QQ/ WeChat/ Sina Weibo)

This year, from Jan 31 to Feb 6th is the lunar new year holiday in China. And by the old calender, Jan 31 was the new year's day, and Jan 30 was the new year's eve of this year. Recently the person who send and receive the greetings of new year on the social media is rapidly increasing in China as I explained before.

Chinese big three social media service, QQ, WeChat, Sina Weibo published the announcement that is related with the new year's greetings as follows.

1. QQ (Tencent)

According to the official announcement, there were 13.6 billion messages in Jan 30th on QQ platform. And in a peak time, there were 32.7 million messages in 1 minute, and they also said that there were 16 million video messages in 1 day.


2. WeChat (Tencent)

According to the official announcement, in a peak time, there were about 10 million messages on WeChat. They didn't publish the total message number of Jan 30th, but they said that its total sending message number were double of the last year, and its total receiving message number were three times of the last year.

And they also said the peak time of exchanging messages were 22:00 and 24:00 on Jan 30th.


3. Sina Weibo (Sina)

According to the official announcement, there were 863,408 messages on the first one minute of Jan 31. They also didn't publish the total messages number, but there were 729,751 message at the same period of the last year, so it can be said its number was increasing.


Well, by looking only this result, QQ is the king. And the next is WeChat, and Sina Weibo was far away from them. But this result was based of new year greetings.

In general, the new year greetings are exchanged between the family, friends and the acquaintance. I think that the social media services can categorize two types by the point of their characteristic view.

Those are "social media service that directed inward" and "social media service that directed outward". Users mainly exchange the personal information between the close relationship in the "social media service that directed inward", and its typical example is Facebook.

On the other hand, user would like to spread their information to unknown people such as the purpose of personal branding in the "social media service that directed outward", and its typical example is Twitter.

And I think that QQ and WeChat is the "social media service that directed inward", and Sina Weibo is the "social media service that directed outward". So I think that Sina Weibo does not have to be pessimistic about this result. If the standard is different, its result also will be different.

But Sina Weibo is recently said that their total users or active users are decreasing.  I think, in the peak period of their growth( it is in 2011) , the users who like the "social media service that directed inward" also joined Sina Weibo, because their friend or acquaintance also use Sina Weibo. And recently, mainly such user was gone or stop to use Sina Weibo, I think.

So I think that Sina Weibo have to care the users who like the "social media service that directed outward", and at the same time, they have to decide how treat the users who like the "social media service that directed inward".


Last, I would like to introduce the status of SMS messages.

SMS has been the most popular method of exchanging the new year greeting in China for a long time. But as I explained before, its number is recently decreasing year by year.

Its number is estimated 30 billion messages during this Chinese new year's holiday, but its number will be decreasing 1.17 billion messages compared with the last year. Mainly almost young people, 80's or 90's, like to use QQ or WeChat when they will sent such greetings, so I think this trend also continue in future.


Many users sometimes have the different two intention in their mind, such as "social media service that directed inward" and "social media service that directed outward". When many users get tires of the "social media service that directed inward", then they tend to move to the "social media service that directed outward". And the reverse pattern is also true.

Now WeChat is the most powerful social media service in China, and it can be said that WeChat is the "social media service that directed inward". So I think the "social media service that directed outward" may come to the fore as a next trend of WeChat.


Souece => Social Media in China blog (Japanese version)

Yixin (EasyChat) released the update version 2.0. The new version was added the no-charge call function.

Yixin (EasyChat) released the major update version 2.0, and they started to provide some interesting functions in this version.

The first is the no-charge call function by VoIP.

  

It's like the Skype, and it can make a call without any charge in the Yixin client. But at this time, it does not support outbound call like the Skype-out.

But I think that they will absolutely try to materialize its outbound service as a pay service. Because China Telecom side with this Yixin, and they have a lot of know-how in this area(the knowledge of billing method, operation method and so forth). It's their original advantage that their rival WeChat doesn't have.


The next is the LBS service like the Google Latitude.

The Yixin user can know the current location of their friends via this function. But of course, if you don't wish provide the information of own current location, you can set that your friend cannot know your current location.


The last is not the new function, but is the change of displaying method in the top page.

The official accounts on Yixin were independently displayed on the top page, but from this version, these official accounts are displayed all in one piece as the menu of "Official account" as same as WeChat.

It may be a bad news for the person who would like to use Yixin for the marketing activity.


Well, its new version of Android was already released, and can download from their official site. And about its iPhone version, they said it is now under examination on the App Store of Apple.


As I explained before, I think Yixin should aim to the direction of total communication tool, and they should not aim to the same direction with WeChat. So I think this update is very meaningful and interesting.

I would like to keep the attention to their action as ever.


Source => The official page of Yixin, Ifeng

The alternation of generations is certainly ongoing. The latest report by CNNIC said Weibo decreased the number of its user and the usage rate for the first time.

Last time, I reported the summary of report by CNNIC, and I explained that the latest number of internet users and mobile internet users in China. And today, I would like to introduce the situation by each internet service in China.

The first picture is written about the number of users and the usage rate by each internet services in China.

Instant messenger still kept the pole position, and its user number was 532.15 million people, and its growth rate is 13.8% increasing compared with the previous year. And the travel booking service and the group buying service scored more than 60% growth rate, so it can be said that their service achieved rapid growth compared with the previous year.

But the most symbolic result is the decline of Weibo. Weibo decreased the number of its user and the usage rate for the first time. As I explained before, the growth of Weibo was slowing down from the last half of 2011. And its active users were also slowly decreasing. But this time, its fact was verified by this report again.

From the last year, WeChat and similar service was rapidly increasing users, and Weibo had been absolutely affected. Sina Weibo started the collaboration with Alibaba group last year, and they had groped the monetization of their platform.

Sina Weibo started the collaboration with Alibaba group last year, and they had groped the monetization of their platform.

But I think its monetization also had a one of the negative impact for their users. Because their collaboration brought a lot of advertize posting on their platform, so it seem that the quite a lot users decided to stop using their platform.

To keep balance of the monetization and the user satisfaction will be most important thing for Sina Weibo, I think.


And the next graph is the situation by each mobile internet services.

The service that achieved more than 10% growth are as follows: Mobile Online Video, Mobile Online Game, Mobile Online Payment， Mobile Online Banking， Mobile Group Buying

'Weibo' also decreased the usage rate in mobile internet area, and it decreased 8.9% compared with the previous year. And 'Mobile SNS' also decreased the usage rate, and it decreased 11.1% compared with previous year.


I wonder whether WeChat or similar IM services can keep their power or not, otherwise other new service may be appeared.

I guess that Chinese social media industry will be occured the diastrophism in 2014...


Source => The report by CNNIC

In China, the number of internet users were 618 million people as of the end of 2013. And the mobile internet users broke the 500 million people.

CNNIC(China Internet Network Information Center) recently published the latest report that is written about the summary of internet user in China.

According to this report, the number of internet users in China were 617.58 million people as of the end of 2013.

Compared to the previous year, the number of internet users increased about 50 million people, and the diffusion rate of internet was 45.8% in the end of 2013.

The number of internet users already exceeded 600 million, but the diffusion rate of it was less than 50%, so it may be still said that China is the huge market.


The next graph is the number of mobile internet users in China.

According to this graph, the number of mobile internet users already exceeded 500 million people as of the end of 2013.

That number increased 80 million compared with the previous year, and the rate of mobile internet user reached 81.0%. Of course that 81.0% is the result of multiple responses, so it doesn't mean that the rate of PC internet users are 19.0%.

But it's certain that the mobile internet users are rapidly increasing, and the next graph also proved its fact.

According to this graph, 73.3% of the new internet users access to the internet by mobile devices. And the rate of desktop PC was 28.7%, and the rate of laptop PC was 16.9%. So it means about 40 to 50% of the new internet users use only the mobile devices to access to the internet.

I think that this result was brought by the effort of enriching the 3G or WiFi environment, but this report also pointed the similar reason. It is said that 2014 is the first year of 4G, and all of the mobile career in China will formally start to provide the 4G services. So I think that this tendency still continue in this year, and this tendency may accelerate more than now.


And the next graph is also interesting. This graph is the result that asked to the non-internet user why they don't use it.

The most common response was that they don't know how to use PC, devices or network(58.1%). The answer of 'without need to access to the internet' was only 10.5%, so it can be said that if the more easy device will be inexpensively appeared in future, the number of internet user will increase rapidly more than now.


And the last graph is the usage rate of internet by each province in China.

The largest usage rate of internet was Beijing, and its number was 75.2%. And the next was Shanghai, and the 3rd position was Guangdong, so it can be said that the usage rate in urban area was still high.

But there is still a lot of the province that the internet usage rate was less than 50%, and in addition that number is more than 30 million people. (For example, that is Hebei, Shandong, Henan and so forth.) So I think that there is the high value of consideration that will target to provide the related product or service to such area. Because China is wide and huge.


Well I explained the summary of this report, but this article was already too long :) So I would like to explain about the usage rate of each internet service in China next time.


Source => The report by CNNIC