India Has Huge Potential in Social Media Business

With multiple platforms having million of applications, what recommendation would you give to those thinking to get into mobile application development domain?

Mobile Internet is still evolving and is at a very early stage. There are plenty of opportunities for new-comers to enter the space. We see the opportunity in 4 aspects: communication (IM, social networking), information (browsing, portal), entertainment (game, music, video etc) and e-commerce. These are basically the key needs from the PC Internet users, and the same will apply to users on mobile Internet as well.

What according to you is the market potential of social messaging apps in India?

India is the 2nd largest market for Facebook, and has proved that it has huge potential in social media business. In addition, we also see that the social messaging apps are amongst the top popular apps in the app store, which is also a very encouraging signal.

How can businesses leverage mobile based social messaging apps?

On most social messaging apps, users can only exchange info and content between trusted friends. As for WeChat, we provide a unique and powerful solution for businesses as well (merchant, brands, content, etc). It is called “official account”. Brands can leverage this official account channel to send targeted and rich-media format message to their followers on WeChat on Mobile. This solution has been widely adopted by brands like Nike, Mcdonalds, Starbucks, etc in China and Hong Kong and very rapidly evolving in China and being seen as one of the best O2O solutions.

Where is the app and communications market headed and expected to be in the coming year (Indian context)?

With WeChat, our goal is to provide users “the new way to connect”. As smartphones should not be restricted by geography, we've positioned WeChat as an international product. We see WeChat as an innovative and unique social service that helps users to connect with the world — whether through their mobile contacts, or through new friendships based on LBS technology, or, to connect them with the other apps/content through WeChat's open platform. Wechat's open platform, is a new way to connect O2O (offline-to-online) by introducing the official account solution for merchants. This goal applies to India too. As for India specific, in the coming year, our focus will be highly upon improving the product experience/performance for Indian users. We will also start marketing the product in the market.