The future of China’s most popular app WeChat is short videos and live streaming, says creator Allen Zhang
- WeChat is a relatively late entrant in the short video and live-streaming market, which has seen a surge in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic
- Over the past five years, the number of daily video messages posted on WeChat has increased 33 times while video content on WeChat Moments is up tenfold
The future of China’s ubiquitous messaging and social media app WeChat will be video and live streaming, according to its creator Allen Zhang, a move that will put the super app in direct competition with rivals ByteDance and Kuaishou.
“Video expression will be a major theme for the next 10 years of content generation,” Zhang told an audience at WeChat’s annual developer conference on Tuesday.
The do-everything app’s current short video feature, Channels, will make video an easy way for everyone to express themselves, not just online celebrities and key opinion leaders, he added.
WeChat, operated by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, launched a beta test of Channels in January last year and by the end of June it had accumulated 200 million users. Over the past five years, the number of videos sent in chats daily by WeChat users has increased 33 times while video content on WeChat Moments – a feature similar to Facebook’s News Feed – has increased tenfold.
Zhang, however, is not limiting the platform to just short video. He also wants to explore live-streaming, pointing out that it has lower barriers than short video when it comes to creating and consuming.
“Live streaming has been in development for many years, but most people still view it from the perspective of e-commerce,” Zhang said. “In the future, live streaming will be how people express themselves.”