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The Chinese super app offers users a platform through which they can do almost anything online. As a result, it has woven itself into the fabric of everyday Chinese society.

WeChat is the primary means by which mainlanders communicate with family, friends, colleagues, and employers. According to , over one-third of WeChat users spend more than four hours in the app each day.

So how did this monolith of an app come to be, and how is it faring against regional and global competitors?

WeChat And Its Global Counterparts

According to , as of January 23, 2018, WeChat ranked number three on the app store in China overall and number one among social networking apps in China and Macao. Since the app launched in January 2011, °Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s number of active monthly users has grown from 2.8 million in Q2 2011 to 963 million in Q2 2017 .

This massive growth was propelled by the unique economic and political atmosphere in which the company was created. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites were in 2009 due to Chinese government concerns over content control. Tencent, which started as an online chat room platform called QQ, leveraged those users and capitalized on the social media gap to start WeChat.

But Tencent didn’t just have state policies that blocked competition on its side. In 2011, China was home to , most of whom use their phones to browse. Tencent also had China’s substantial mobile Internet population to tap into. In 2016, reported that “more Chinese reach the internet via their mobiles than do so in America, Brazil, and Indonesia combined. Many leapt from the pre-web era straight to the mobile internet, skipping the personal computer altogether.”

This mix of state-restricted competition, played out in favor of Tencent, and a large mobile user base hungry for their devices to do more, has created a network that’s moved far beyond messaging.

WeChat Becomes More Than A Social Network

Tencent transformed WeChat from a messaging app, like Whatsapp, into a monetized social media platform where third-party developers and businesses can directly access the Chinese mobile Internet market. Like Facebook, companies run targeted ads and through official accounts. Within the same environment, customers can conveniently pay for goods or hail a taxi.

In January 2017, Tencent took its innovation a step further when it began allowing individuals to instantly download and apps—mini-programs in WeChat parlance—within °Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s interface. The data from the apps is stored along with WeChat data. The company it believes the program will “provide more venues for users to sample functionalities offered by apps and thus increase the conversion rate for app downloads.”

, WeChat now boasts an offering of 580,000 mini-programs on the platform in just one year since its launch. It is estimated that 95 percent of ecommerce brands in China have created a mini-program.

However, just because Tencent has a goliath in WeChat doesn’t mean there isn’t worthy competition.

Competition Close To Home

Tencent isn’t the only company that caught on to the all-in-one app idea. Tokyo-based launched an in 2015, , to transform its messaging service into a platform like WeChat. Later that year, it started in Japan, and in 2016, it “Line Man,” a regional on-demand delivery service.

The company went on to raise in its dual NY-Tokyo IPO in the same year. Line has also attempted to take its success global, launching its platform and .

In Q2 2017, the company boasted 169 million monthly active users in its Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand markets according to . Though that number is quite lower than °Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s 938 million, taking into consideration global competition, its success is relatively significant.

But how does Tencent’s WeChat stack up to the West, where the real global social networking giants lie?

°Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s Competing Western Heavyweights

Facebook-owned WhatsApp, the global heavyweight in the messaging service industry, had a monthly active user rate that grew from 200 million in April 2013 to 1.3 billion in July 2017, . Facebook Messenger, on the other hand, had an active monthly user total of 200 million in April 2014 which grew to by September 2017.

Even with these huge global user numbers*, Facebook Messenger and other players, like Apple, have joined the competition to become the “.”

For instance, Facebook Messenger made direct payments available back in 2015, and it games available within its app in May 2017. Similarly, Apple iMessage began to allow its users to within the messaging interface when it rolled out iOS 11 in September. iMessage also supports in-message payments through Apple Pay.

However, these companies have concentrate core services, such as requesting an Uber, in a messaging product—making the unique atmosphere in which Tencent designed and implemented WeChat all the more notable.

But although Facebook and Apple have struggled to import lessons from WeChat to their local markets, Tencent has equally struggled in exporting its successful all-in-one strategy to western markets.

Tencent Invests Abroad

Aside from the potential for expansion in smaller countries with a promising mobile Internet market, like Malaysia, Tencent has focused its efforts for WeChat abroad on Chinese travelers. The company has in 14 countries outside of China, allowing foreign brands to appeal to the of traveling Chinese consumers.

Beyond mainland borders, however, Tencent has focused its expansion on investing in global WeChat competitors. Tencent invested $50 million in a for competing messaging platform . In the announcement of the deal, Kik CEO, Ted Livingston, that “with so much of their focus on winning China, [Tencent will] support Kik running independently to win the U.S.”

Similarly, Tencent invested in another messaging platform in India called . The social messaging startup raised $175 million in a Series D funding round in August 2016. Hike has also implemented a payment system. The startup launched its “” project which °Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s . Through the project, friends and family members can send each other gifts through an embedded payment system.

It seems likely that Tencent will continue to focus °Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s efforts on further satisfying the needs of its Chinese mobile internet user base and keeping Alibaba at bay. On the global end, it will be interesting to see if Tencent’s influence through messaging platforms abroad, like Hike, will give WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger a run for their money. The WeChat of the West may not actually be WeChat, but it may well end up being a China-backed messaging underdog.

*WhatsApp was not widely blocked in China until . The data for both Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp is inclusive of all global users. 

iStockPhoto / BrianAJackson

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Integrated into the daily life of most Chinese people with smartphone access, WeChat is used to book appointments, pay bills, schedule deliveries, and .

As of Q4 2016, the behemoth under Tencent 889 million users. Though some of its users are international, the number is more than half of the Chinese population (approximately ).

Although micropayments for content have not yet taken off in the U.S., it’s possible that °Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s successful micropayment strategy could provide a template—despite obstruction from the iPhone’s creator. So to gain some understanding, we dug into the features of WeChat official accounts, and chatted with a few bloggers that are part of the ecosystem.

What Are WeChat Official Accounts?

°Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s official accounts can be broken down into three types: service, enterprise, and subscription. (China Channel gives you a good of how they work). To compare micropayments to Medium, we are going to focus on °Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s subscription tier.

Subscription accounts share a mix of daily news, opinion columns, and personal blogs. A subscription account can also serve as a content marketing tool for companies and a distribution channel for publications.

Anyone can start a subscription account, but not all accounts are branded with the “original” tag. How an account becomes original and what impact censorship has on content types remain unclear; however, patterns indicate that the “original” tag is given to accounts that put out high-quality posts and frequently engage with readers. In return, original subscription accounts are provided with safeguards against plagiarism.

Access to advanced widgets is also offered, including commenting and the ability to receive microtransactions. At the bottom of each post, readers can donate an amount of their choosing to a writer. Below is what the tipping interface looks like from my own subscription account. The red button means to reward:

Once the tips are processed, the account owner will receive a notification specifying the donor’s WeChat name (often not real names) and amount tipped.

According to , 10.7 percent of WeChat users have used the tipping feature. Out of those, 37 percent say that they tip from one ($0.15) to ten yuan ($1.5) per month. Four percent tip more than 100 yuan ($15). If we do the math, tipping translates into at least $52 million in aggregate per month.

For context, Medium subscribers a five-dollar monthly fee, which is then distributed to content producers. Per Medium’s Partner Program email, shared by Martin Bryant on , the claps program has shown promising numbers:

The highest-performing author on Medium's Partner Program earned $1,342.54 in the first two weeks of September. Average was $68.44

— Martin Bryant (@MartinSFP)

Whether Medium turns claps into a full-scale ecosystem remains to be seen. And on both WeChat and Medium, readership and donations are concentrated to a few accounts with large followings.

, who blogs about tech entrepreneurship and career development, has around 10,000 followers. The author told Crunchbase News that though “tipping feature [encourages] writers to produce good content,” only “ones that update daily with high-quality content” have the potential to become self-sufficient through micropayments.

According to Zhu, one of his articles on using code to standardize resumes got 15,374 clicks and 2174.44 yuan (almost $330) in tips. That was hard earned money, however. Zhu admitted that the article took him days to write and edit, something that he cannot do on a daily basis.

Not all has been sunshine and roses for WeChat, thanks to Apple’s determination to maintain its foothold in China.

The Apple-WeChat War

Tipping was introduced by WeChat . However, in April, Apple forced WeChat to the feature on its iOS app, officially initiating the to grab the China market. Apple’s In-App Purchase (IAP) guidelines collecting funds through means other than its own payment system, which made °Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s tipping feature a violation.

In response, some writers have included payment QR codes in their posts, or hoped for more traffic from Android users. But the impact of the removal was still among the content community, most of whom try to make a living off of their subscription accounts.

“When the tipping feature shut down, my goal of subsidizing my living costs fell through,” Can Yu, who runs a book review subscription account, told Crunchbase News. “While I still included a payment QR code at the bottom, I felt that reader engagement went down a lot without the donation button.”

However, a few days ago, months of discussions and anxiety among writers have finally been answered. Apple its IAP guidelines, allowing peer-to-peer donations. In this case, writers would be allowed to receive tips from their readers again. However, WeChat is required to make donations optional and cannot take a cut from the proceeds. The change might have been the fruit of Tencent CEO Pony Ma’s with Tim Cook prior to the iPhone 8 launch.

While everything seems to be back to normal, another conflict is looming. This January, WeChat mini programs, which are essentially apps housed within the all-powerful app. Some speculate that mini programs will eventually real apps and possibly become new revenue streams for writers.

Lessons From WeChat

In the U.S., blog platforms social elements, and chat apps mobile payment systems. We cannot help but wonder why WeChat has succeeded in micropayments.

First, articles published on subscription accounts can be sent to friends directly or shared on Moments (similar to your Facebook or Twitter feed). The built-in community makes distributing content much easier, something that Medium has been .

Second, to process a micropayment on WeChat, you don’t need to type in your credit card information or log into Paypal. Users, most of whom already have money deposited in their WeChat wallet, can reward writers with just a few taps on the screen.

°Â±đ°äłó˛ąłŮ’s everything-in-one characteristic may be geographically unique, as China already has . Therefore, Medium claps probably won’t catch up with WeChat tips anytime soon. But for those interested in scaling micropayments in the U.S., there are some lessons worth gleaning from China’s mobile giant.

iStockPhoto / BrianAJackson