An urban Chinese person without a smartphone – hard to imagine. 60 per cent of the country’s population are online, 98 per cent of them via a smartphone, and pretty much everyone is using WeChat. The app is the most commonly used method of communication. It goes far beyond what its Western counterparts such as WhatsApp do. In addition to chatting, the app also offers a social network where companies, celebrities and news pages have a presence, similar to Facebook here. At the same time, the app features a host of mini applications for booking tables in restaurants, contacting builders or making doctors’ appointments – or simply for gaming. And to top it all, WeChat Pay allows the Chinese to make virtually any sort of purchase, both online and offline. It has made cash pretty much obsolete in everyday life.
Anyone wanting to do business in China will need to get to grips with the app – a German version is available from the App Store. Given the rising numbers of Chinese tourists, the option of using WeChat Pay could be a way for German restaurants, hotels and retailers to make things easier for their customers, and thereby increase their revenue. Last year, Bremen welcomed around 8,000 visitors from the Far East.
It’s not absolutely necessary to use the app’s payment function directly, and it would be difficult to do for foreigners without a Chinese bank account. A number of payment service providers, such as Wirecard, are already offering systems that are compatible with WeChat Pay (or its competitor app, Alipay).
Read more: www.mobilegeeks.de/artikel/wechat/ and www.businessofapps.com/data/wechat-statistics/
Link tip: China Techcity
The Abacus News website presents China’s major tech companies from the consumer goods, internet and social media sectors within one impressive animation: https://www.abacusnews.com/china-tech-city
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