To be fair, Allen Zhang shared more than four statistics this week, over his unprecedented four hour speech at WeChat’s 2019 Open Course Pro conference. And he did it while dressed like Kanye.
The marathon speech touched on WeChat’s integrity and evolution, mini programs and video goals, and of course, the extreme feelings Zhang experiences every time WeChat reaches yet another milestone. To spare you the sleep-inducing chore of combing through the 30,000 word speech, we’ve compiled 4 of the freshest, most jaw-dropping WeChat facts. Here they are:
WeChat users now clock in at over a billion
For the first time ever, WeChat’s user login volume exceeded 1.08 billion people (a first for Chinese apps). And that billion is pretty diverse — 63 million of their active users are 55 years old and up. That’s somebody’s mini-van driving mom sending cute WeChat stickers with her pointer finger, one slow individual click at a time. Pretty inclusive for a social media platform, and Zhang expressed pride in being the first Chinese company to achieve such numbers.
Related:
People are addicted to WeChat moments
Speaking of daily users: according to Zhang, 750 million people are opening up WeChat moments (the app’s social timeline feed) more than ten times per day. That’s like 75% of the app’s users. We know what you’re thinking — how many grannies over the age of 55 are checking their moments feed over ten times per day?? Unfortunately, Zhang didn’t find time to answer that question in his four hour ironman speech.
There’s an inexplicable and enigmatic 19 year plan
Yup. Zhang has a prospective 19 year-long plan to gradually improve WeChat. Why 19 years? Who knows!
It’s admittedly a bit of a weird thing to do in the tech industry. 19 year ago cell phones were the size of milk cartons. And what does the 19 year plan entail? Find out in the special eight hour long director’s cut of the speech.
People are not sleeping these days
Are you guilty of the extremely unhealthy habit of checking your messages and social media feed in bed, delaying your restful slumber? So are WeChat users. In fact, the average WeChat user goes to sleep 1.5 hours later on average than they did just three years ago.
Will WeChat hit two billion users? Will they get control of their sleep schedules? How often do grannies check their moments? Find out in year two of the 19-year plan.
