WeChat allows content sharing with banned Facebook, Twitter

Internet giant Tencent Holdings has enhanced the functions for domestic Chinese WeChat users by allowing them to synchronise their Moments contents simultaneously to Facebook and Twitter, which are banned on the mainland.

Moments is a popular socialising function of WeChat, or Weixin as it is known in China, which allows users to network by sharing information, photos and articles with their friends privately.

The synchronisation function with Facebook and Twitter is already available to overseas WeChat users, and extending it to domestic users underlines Tencent’s efforts to expand its user base within and outside China.

Facebook and Twitter, whose active users have reached 1.97 billion and 319 million globally as of the end of April, remain inaccessible in the mainland. Tencent said over 937 million people are using its WeChat app to message friends.

The synchronisation function is now available to iPhone iOS users who had until now, only been able to synchronise their Moments contents to the another popular Tencent messaging service QQ. The function for Android users is expected to be available soon.

Despite its huge investments to expand globally, Tencent was compelled to initially open up the synchronisation function to its overseas WeChat users as it faces difficulty breaking into the Western mainstream market where consumer habits were strongly entrenched, said Wang Xiaofeng, a senior analyst with Forrester Research.