How a decade of smartphone apps changed the way people live, work and play in China
- In China, users spent an average of 600 million cumulative hours watching short-form videos, according to the 2019 Internet Trend Report
- Launched in 2011, WeChat started out as a messaging app like WhatsApp and Line but quickly grew into a super-app
When finance industry employee Ringo Li relocated back to Beijing from Tokyo in 2010, he brought along his first smartphone – an iPhone 3G. Although one of the most advanced handsets available at the time, it was mainly used for text messages and phone calls, and occasional internet-surfing where Wi-fi was available.
Life was mostly offline back then. Li would go to restaurants to order food, pay bills with cash and hailed a taxi with an outstretched arm standing on the roadside.
Fast forward 10 years and Li’s life has completely changed. No longer in finance, he communicates via WeChat and uses apps on his iPhone XS to order food, hail taxis, pay bills, and shop.
Most of the apps that permeate the daily life of Li and hundreds of millions of other Chinese had their beginnings at the start of the decade.
Launched in 2011, WeChat started out as a messaging app like WhatsApp and Line but quickly grew into a super-app, offering additional functions like payments, and today is used by 1.15 billion Chinese.
Food delivery giant Meituan was founded in 2010 as a Groupon-like group-buying website before merging with rival Dianping in 2015 to create China’s largest lifestyle platform.