On 20 April 2015, China Press and Publication Academy released the report of the 12th national reading survey which included reading on WeChat for the first time. The report showed that on average a Chinese adult reads on WeChat twice a day for over 40 minutes.
One-third of Chinese leisure time is spent on the Internet, especially on mobile phones in China according to CCTV’s research in 2015.
China Press and Publication Academy’s survey involved China mobile phone users from 29 provinces and municipalities in 2014. The data showed that over 60% China adult mobile users read on WeChat in 2014. There was little difference between male mobile users and female ones.
Further, most mobile users reading on WeChat would like to chat and browse WeChat Moments, which accounted for 80%. Reading news, reading shared articles on WeChat Moments and reading articles published on WeChat official accounts represented 72.9%, 67.1% and 20.9% respectively.
There were many practical functions on WeChat in 2014. 27.2% WeChat readers favored QR code scanning; 19% readers used QQ mail and 19% used “shake to find friends nearly”; 15.3% chose to use WeChat payment while 7% readers used online ticket booking and food ordering service in 2014.
WeChat team launched “Shake – Nearby” platform (based on Bluetooth technology offering offline merchants to connect with mobile users) on 12 April 2015 to merchants targeting China’s O2O market. And WeChat quietly launched a cash reward feature for WeChat official accounts in Feb 2015.
Also read: WeChat Wi-Fi to Step on A New Stage in China
