On the eve of the Spring Festival, people in China sent a massive number of messages through the popular messaging application WeChat. The number of messages sent via WeChat app doubled on January 30, 2014.
The latest data was released on February 2, 2014 by Tencent – the developer of WeChat – which mentioned that during the peak minute, the number of messages with best wishes for the ‘Year of the ‘Horse’ in the Chinese Zodiac increased to 10 million.
People of China sent their best wishes through messages on the eve and the text messaging services are offered by the three state-owned telecom giants in the country. The cost of one message stood at 0.1 yuan. However, the current trend of text messaging is changing with the introduction of new services like WeChat. The application enables users to send free messages and voice services to other mobile users who are only required to pay for their data flow through the internet.
Text messages sent on the eve in 2013 through services of China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom totaled 13.3 billion, which is an 11 percent increase year-on-year. Meanwhile, the figure for 2014 is yet to be released. Due to the introduction of the messaging app, telecom providers in China have been facing pressure, as the revenue of China Mobile experienced a drop in 2011.
Photo Credits: China Daily
