WeChat is often called “The Chinese Internet,” as almost anything you do on the web you can also do on WeChat. What is the leading Chinese messenger app? I’m sure if you have even a passing interest in China, you’ve heard of WeChat. In this article, I’ll cover these two dominant Chinese messaging apps as well as the challengers hoping to claim the #3 position in China. While WeChat and Tencent QQ are staples in China, new Chinese Chatting Apps have appeared in the last year hoping to take just a sliver of market share from these two dominant platforms. While challengers have appeared over the years few have been able to capture any significant market share from WeChat. WeChat has become a powerful force in China, being used for everything from business communications to hailing taxis. WeChat now dominates the Chinese messenger app space, with over a 90% penetration rate and over 1 billion monthly active users. This became the primary form of communication in China until the launch of WeChat in 2011. Open ICQ (Tencent QQ) - The First Mainstream Chinese Chat App After a legal battle with AOL, the service would eventually go on to become Tencent QQ, the first Chinese Instant Messenger to go mainstream. In 1999 Pony Ma launched OICQ (Open ICQ).

Ma and his Shenzhen based team quickly realized the potential in launching a Chinese chat app. While popular around the world, the service had little to no Chinese chatting or presence in China. In the late 90s, Pony Ma first encountered one of the internet’s earliest messaging apps, ICQ, created by an Israeli company way back in 1996. The Chinese Messenger App landscape began with the founder of Tencent, Pony Ma. In this article we will cover: Chinese Messaging App Landscape New competitors have been launched that might just change the Chinese messaging app landscape. Although the Chinese Messenger marketplace has been dormant for a while. But in China, the Great Firewall has allowed the evolution of a distinct Chinese chat app. Email, Facebook Messenger, and Whatsapp might be the primary forms of communication that we all use in the west.

Messenger icq chat