Few companies can even dream of the sort of brand awareness enjoyed by Tencent. The Chinese super app is so sewn into the lives of people in China — who use it to work, play, pay and everything in between — that it is hard to last a day without it.
Its messaging app WeChat boasts over 1bn accounts and users on average spend more than a couple of hours a day on it. Big brands from Burberry to Gucci to Starbucks hold official accounts, where users can watch influencers flaunt products, or access flash sales.
Critics query the privacy of using WeChat: earlier this year Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Automobile, opined that Tencent chairman Pony Ma was “definitely looking at our WeChat messages every day”. More recently, however, Tencent found itself facing battle from a hitherto more benign quarter — Beijing.