WeChat Edges Facebook Messenger as Latest Mobile OS — Saaspad Weekly
Two years ago I wrote about how WeChat would beat Facebook as the new mobile OS that will work alongside Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Last week, Tencent’s chat app took a step in that direction when it tested ‘Miniapp’: running web apps inside WeChat.
WeChat is already one of China’s most popular and effective distribution platform for digital content (like mobile games). With 806 million monthly active users as of June 2016, the app would be serious alternative to the app stores for native mobile apps.
WeChat has hit the sweet spot that Facebook Messenger is still trying to get to: becoming the centre of the mobile experience (as opposed to centre of the web experience). Frankly, Messenger may never get to the level of WeChat because Messenger operates is less polarised ecosystem.
It could turn WeChat’s app into a sort of operating system within an operating system, a one-stop app that users would rarely have to leave to use other mobile apps — WSJ
During our research at Saaspad, we estimated that WeChat will be the single most influence piece of technology that will ignite the explosive growth of SaaS in China. Firstly, because it unlocks and support a whole new pricing model that will challenge the current subscription model. And secondly, because it is a powerful, non-web but OS-independent distribution platform, something crucial to the distribution of SaaS and cloud SMB apps.
Chinese SaaS is Attracting More Investment But There’s Still A Quality Problem
In the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen notable investments from larger Chinese corporations into SaaS companies. Tencent has been stepping up its investment in SaaS applications like Intel-backed AWCloud and Teambition (discussed in a preview Saaspad digest). And more recently, SaaS companies received funding from Chinese property developers.
China’s central government is also calling on local governments to get into venture capital. And given then current state of China’s venture capital that additional influx of cash from inexperienced investors is not likely to encourage quality SaaS companies.
The biggest problem with these government venture and even so-called private equity is that like most things in China, it’s not concerned about profitability and economic efficiency — Victor Shih
Many in China are saying that we are facing a ‘Deep Winter’ and we’ll fund dry up. That didn’t count all the money the Chinese government is looking to shower startups with. That can’t be so good for VCs, right? Technode promised to give us an insight into what it‘s’ like to be a VC in China at the moment. We’ll be sure to read up.
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Saaspad Weekly is a digest that I write for Saaspad on all things SaaS, China and tech. For a daily fix, go to saaspad.com.
