The first incentive measures for video numbers to test the waters of content payment; WeChat Pay plans to invest more than 10 billion subsidies to help small and micro merchants carry out digital upgrades; commercialization and monetization are the key directions of Mini Programs in the future; Search monthly activities reach 700 million; and enterprise WeChat will release version 4.0.
Author | Yu Huiru Editing | Luo Lijuan
In last year's WeChat Open Class PRO, Zhang Xiaolong summarized the tenth anniversary of WeChat in the form of live video broadcast and looked forward to the next decade.
This year, without even a video, Zhang Xiaolong was "completely" absent from the WeChat open class.
This is the 11th year of WeChat's establishment, and it is also the beginning of the official entry into the next decade.
Since 2015, the annual WeChat open class has become an important window for the outside world to understand the current situation and direction of WeChat and ecological development. On January 6, the 2022 WeChat Open Class Pro without Zhang Xiaolong, led by the heads or product managers of each business line of the WeChat team, shared the changes in the ecology of the past year, including video numbers, WeChat Mini Programs, WeChat Pay, etc., and also brought their next new trends.
According to Tencent's latest financial report data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the number of monthly active users of Tencent WeChat increased to 1.263 billion, and the number of active Mini Programs increased by more than 40% year-on-year, mainly due to the strengthening of the business ecology and the deepening of penetration in industries such as catering, retail and transportation.
In 10 years, behind the more than 1.2 billion users and becoming a "national-level" application, how much room can WeChat grow? In the new year, what are the priorities of various businesses such as video numbers, mini programs, mini games, enterprise WeChat, and search?
1
The commercialization of multiple ecosystems has accelerated
In 3 days, the Mini Program will usher in the 5th anniversary "birthday".
Last year, in the WeChat open class, the Mini Program team said that it would continue to improve the commercial infrastructure. Today, the Mini Program has handed in the report card: the number of daily active users (DAUs) of the Mini Program has exceeded 450 million, and the average number of daily use of the Mini Program has increased by 32% year-on-year. The scale of realization increased by 90%, of which 90% of the growth came from small and medium-sized businesses.
Affected by the epidemic, in the past two years, WeChat Mini Programs have accelerated their integration into all walks of life - nucleic acid testing and vaccine appointment Mini Programs have served 700 million users, documents and other tool Mini Programs have served 750 million users, and an average of more than 100 million users use government services on Mini Programs every day.
"The ecology of Mini Programs tends to be healthy." Zeng Ming, the relevant person in charge of the Mini Program, said that the Mini Program itself does not serve, but is only a carrier of service, and will do more exploration in other industries and the real economy in the future.
Zeng Ming introduced that while helping merchants save operating costs and increase revenue, the commercial ecology of Mini Programs has become more and more plump. The data shows that in 2021, the transaction volume of Mini Programs in the retail, tourism and catering industries increased by more than 100% year-on-year, and the number of Mini Programs with transactions increased by 28% year-on-year.
The data disclosed by the Mini Program shows that the popularity of the Mini Program services for food, marriage and love, and medical care is increasing, and it has become a new trend worthy of attention.
"In 2022, Mini Programs will provide more new capabilities to connect hardware devices." Zeng Ming said.
While mini programs continue to improve commercial infrastructure, WeChat Pay is also striving to establish a integrity system with users and B-end merchants through "payment points".
The data shows that WeChat Pay has been opened by 50% of WeChat Pay users, covering more than 3,000 commercial convenience scenarios. Based on WeChat payment points, the number of "first use and pay later" users in scenarios such as e-commerce, travel, express delivery, and charging piles exceeded 100 million.
"In fact, in the past few years, WeChat Pay has never achieved profitability in the collection business of small and micro merchants, and has always been in a state of loss." Zhang Ying, a lecturer at the WeChat Open Class, revealed in her speech that WeChat Pay will continue to subsidize more than 10 billion yuan to help small and micro merchants upgrade digitally.
With the diversification of user search needs and the connection to the entire WeChat ecosystem through the contacts of the Mini Program, the traffic of SouYisou has contributed 68% of the daily active users of the Mini Program.
At present, Soisou has supported more than 5,100 official registrations of public hospitals, with a cumulative number of more than 100 million people. In terms of commercialization capabilities, the official brand area has served more than 2,000 brands in China.
Zhou Hao, head of WeChat Search, said that in the next step, Sou Yisou will continue to understand and excavate the distinctive, high-quality content and services in the WeChat ecosystem, display these contents and services, and accurately reach users.
As the window of Tencent's industrial Internet, the enterprise WeChat has made great efforts in "connection". In 2021, enterprise WeChat has made progress in digital government, consumer retail, manufacturing reform, and smart education.
According to Huang Tieming, a lecturer at the WeChat Open Class, the WeChat enterprise account will release a new version next week, supporting the two major capabilities of "connecting video numbers" and "WeChat customer service".
In the WeChat open class in 2022, the various services of the WeChat ecosystem emphasize the attributes of service and socialization.
2
Can the video number carry the flag?
In the WeChat ecosystem, the development of video numbers may be the one that has attracted the most market attention. In this year's WeChat open class, the video number keynote speech was also the first to appear.
A group of results exploded: 27 million+ online viewers of the 2021 video number Xicheng Boys Concert, the highest number of simultaneous online viewers was 1.5 million; the number of mayday concert viewers was 14 million+; Meng Wanzhou returned to China to watch 15 million +; Shenzhou 12 launched 15 million +.
"In the next decade, video expression will be a theme in the field of content." At last year's WeChat open class PRO, Zhang Xiaolong mentioned in his speech that the future video content is a huge knowledge base, and WeChat hopes to precipitate video-based content and make itself a video library, which can be excavated through search and so on.
In January 2020, the WeChat video account officially opened the internal test. Since 2020, Tencent has poured a lot of effort into supporting video numbers.
In the past two years, the video number has completed the framework, built the basic capabilities of the product, and established the basic product operation direction and content operation direction.
However, for a long time, Tencent's short videos have been diseased by the outside world, even if it is backed by Tencent's strong social DNA, there is still no real "shoulder" product, combined with App to cope with external competition, but with little effect.
In the eyes of the outside world, the lack of content innovation is the biggest problem faced by video numbers.
In the past two years, there have not been many support plans for creators on video accounts, and creators' earnings cannot be guaranteed. This also leads to the fact that the video number has not yet come out of the head creator.
The change happened in the last month of 2021. In the past month, the WeChat video account began to test the water concert live, and two online concerts were launched successively, Xicheng Boys and Mayday.
Among them, the online concert co-organized with West Side Boys swept the major social networks and climbed the popular charts.
Zhuang Shuai, an analyst at Bailian Consulting, believes that the essence of the video number is to improve user activity through large-scale marketing events such as online entertainment activities and cultivate the habit of users watching video numbers; at the same time, the platform can also explore multiple business models such as live broadcast rewards and event sponsorship.
Zhang Xiaochao revealed that in the future, the WeChat video account will also invite more musicians to broadcast live. At the same time, the video number will encourage pyrotechnic and live-action original content, including videos and live broadcasts such as life tips, pan-entertainment, and pan-information.
In this open class, the video number first launched the "Creator Incentive Plan", providing traffic tilt for original content, allowing 10 million original authors to have traffic, promoting 1 million high-quality creators to have income, and further improving the growth system of content creators.
In the upcoming Spring Festival, WeChat will also support each video number creator to create their own red envelope cover, so that creators can also increase interaction with their fans.
Since April last year, the video number has launched the "live broadcast task" to help creators monetize, at present, the video number can already achieve one-click store opening, user tips, live streaming with goods and other functions, short video shopping cart function is still in grayscale test.
"When video appears as a basic component, the ability to charge video is not excluded in the future, whether it is short video or live broadcast." Zhang Xiaochao said that the video number is about to launch a paid live broadcast room.
3
WeChat 11 years, open classes for 8 years
WeChat will celebrate its eleventh birthday.
Since the opening of the public beta on January 21, 2011, WeChat has changed the way many people use the basic functions of mobile phones, and has become the most frequent app used by many people every day for social and work.
In February 2018, the number of monthly active users of WeChat global users exceeded the 1 billion mark for the first time.
In the public class on WeChat's 10th anniversary, Zhang Xiaolong shared a set of data: in the past decade, 1.09 billion users have opened WeChat every day, and 330 million users have made video calls; 780 million users have entered the circle of friends, 120 million users have published the circle of friends, including 670 million photos and 100 million short videos; 360 million users have read public account articles, and 400 million users have used mini programs.
These numbers continue to grow. According to the latest official data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the number of monthly active users of WeChat has increased to 1.263 billion.
Since 2015, the annual WeChat open class is not only a window for the outside world to understand WeChat's achievements in the past year and the trend of the new year, but also an important moment for Zhang Xiaolong, a talented product manager, to output product ideas.
On January 25, 2015, weChat Circle of Friends advertising was officially announced online, and Coca-Cola, Vivo and BMW became the first batch of Circle of Friends advertisers. That year, Zhang Xiaolong stressed in the WeChat open class that WeChat will not do everything, but hopes to build an ecosystem based on WeChat.
In the following years of open classes, Zhang Xiaolong emphasized that "user value must be put first", and will not exchange resources with any external or internal to replace user value.
In the WeChat open class in 2016, Zhang Xiaolong released the concept of WeChat Mini Program, through the WeChat public account as the carrier, to achieve the development, acquisition of users and communication costs of the application model.
In the next few years, small games, payment points, search, video numbers and other services have been launched.
As a genius product manager, Zhang Xiaolong has repeatedly explained the concept of "use up and go" in WeChat open classes. In his view, a good software, a good tool should let the user run out of time. The logic is simple: any tool is to help users improve efficiency, with the most efficient way to complete the task, this is the purpose of the tool, the mission of the tool. WeChat is also a tool, so the purpose of WeChat is also to help users use the most efficient method to complete its tasks.
After eleven years, WeChat has become a "daily necessity" of people's lives. Obviously, in the past eleven years, WeChat has been successful.
What is WeChat like many years later, it is estimated that no one can answer this question.
However, when talking about the development of WeChat in the next decade last year, Zhang Xiaolong once said that he hoped that when WeChat was "the year of the weak crown", it would still become a small and beautiful product, with a soul, an aesthetic, a creative, a concept, and not just a slave to digital.