In the eyes of Tencent CEO Pony Ma, Wechat was opening a new way for Tencent. However, the real problem for Wechat was that in order to achieve, it would have to kill QQ. And this was happening.
In Tencent company, the staff all knew about the coming battle between QQ and Wechat, for internal development resources and dominance inside the company. QQ would be replaced gradually, which was not determined by market but largely due to Tencent’s future strategy.
In the PC end era, QQ represented everything of Tencent. QQ had a large number of user base, which drove large traffic and built membership, game, etc. QQ number was the connection to all Tencent business. However, in mobile end era, Wechat replaced QQ to be the core business of Tencent.
But it seemed that Wechat could not replace QQ to be the cash cow. At present, Wechat still did not have a mature business model, or the ability to generate large revenue continually. For Tencent, there’s no need for Wechat to become the money machine right now. It represented the future.
Tencent laid its focus on mobile internet, therefore, QQ was destined to end. It means except for revenue from games, most of Tencent’s revenue (up to 50%) needed to redefine. Considering the fact that Tencent gambled everything on Wechat, the transformation of revenue would speed up.
Wechat, unlike QQ, faced a different market situation. Although Wechat had millions of registered users, it still had to compete with Laiwang and Yixin. Therefore, Wechat dared not to charge its users and very unlikely in the future. On the contrary, QQ had built up a successful membership business model and proved by capital market. If Tencent give up QQ, it would not only face the decrease of revenue but also the growing risk. The intense competition in mobile IM market made Tencent give up making money from registered users, and it could not charge public accounts either.
Many outside analysts helped to design the future missions of Wechat, its strategic position was uplifted to an extremely high point. QQ department sensed the internal priority shifting towards Wechat. It’s no doubt that Wechat is killing QQ, but the problem will be how Tencent is going to survive when QQ revenue drops and Wechat has not begun making money.