How WeChat, China’s social media colossus, can get bigger still if smartphones are used more for work, survey shows
Report presented at CES Asia in Shanghai quotes survey showing only 28 per cent of smartphone owners use them for work, showing potential for dominant social media platform to grow if job-related handset usage rises
Can WeChat possibly get bigger than it already is in mainland China? A new study released at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Asia in Shanghai this week suggests there is still room for growth. It also confirms just how big online shopping has become in China.
According to “Digital Lifestyles in China”, released by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), despite the mobile phone app reaching saturation point – with 889 million monthy active users – WeChat has yet to infiltrate people’s professional lives.
The report shows that while 96 per cent of those surveyed use smartphones for personal interactions, that dips spectacularly to only 28 per cent for work purposes. There are similar statistics for tablet users.
WeChat is top workplace communications app for 90 per cent of Chinese professionals
“Social media is all about personal life in China,” says Steve Koenig, senior director of market research at the CTA. “Chinese people draw a line between their personal and professional engagement on social media – there’s a separation you don’t see in other parts of the world.
“Elsewhere in the world social media platforms like Facebook are cross-pollinated by business pages. That’s not the case in China, where just 28 per cent use social media for professional purposes.”
The findings also note that up to 75 per cent of people in China use desktop PCs for work.
“A lot of these devices are used interchangeably elsewhere, no matter whether the endeavour is personal or professional, to check e-mail and Facebook. In China we see strong engagement across these ‘hub’ devices for personal use,” says Koenig.