A report conducted by Beijing Normal University shows Wechat penetration rate in Beijing and Shenzhen accounted for 51.7%. Wechat, QQ and Weibo are three major social apps among Chinese with more male users. Wechat had higher total user reach over 40 years old group than QQ while for under 40 years old group Wechat’s reach is the lower.
Wechat had 438 million monthly active users in Q2 2014 in China. Wechat’s social features attract Chinese users such as its mobile gaming social platform, micro-video and business accounts for team collaboration, card payment and so on.
The report shows 40% Wechat users have less than 50 contacts on Wechat. Overall, male Wechat users have more contacts than female ones in China. Besides, higher education & higher salary users tend to have more Wechat friends. 26.1% Wechat users use Wechat Moments every day according to the report.
Professor Zhang Hongzhong from Beijing Normal University, believes that, Wechat groups in China have high engagement and credibility in Chinese society nowadays; in other words, they get high virtual social capital. However, Wechat group’s virtual social capital has limited impact on offline behaviors.
