Monday 19 November 2018

There are more than 10m apps ('mini programmes') on WeChat

"They may not be widely known outside of China, but Tencent’s mini program initiative to develop “apps” that live outside of app stores is bearing fruit after it clocked two notable landmarks: 200 million daily users and one million apps.
In recent years, Tencent’s WeChat  messaging app has blossomed into a universe of its own with myriad services that span from food delivery to getting loans. But the Chinese messaging app wants to lock users in for longer — and its mini program scheme appears to show promise.
Back in January 2017, Tencent introduced “mini programs,” which are essentially lightweight apps that run inside WeChat. When you need to hail a cab, for example, instead of downloading the standalone Didi Chuxing app, you can summon its mini program on WeChat in the blink of an eye.
WeChat now has over one million such mini programs, Tencent founder and CEO Pony Ma said today at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China. (Third-party analytics firm Aladdin mentioned this milestone in a June report.) That makes its ecosystem half the size of the Apple App Store, which recorded 2.1 million apps in April."

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