The vice president of Tencent’s WeChat business group, Huang Tieming, revealed on Tuesday that 17,000 companies now offering various services via its WeChat Work platform,36Kr reported.
WeChat Work was first made available as a standalone app to business entities in China three years ago. It allows corporations to bundle work-related operations—emails, requests for leave or reimbursement, instant communication, and more—for their employees. To enlarge what it can provide, Tencent has been cooperatiing with third-party Software as a Service vendors.
In January, in a move to lure new users, WeChat’s business group rolled out a feature allowing each company to have a customized digital red envelop cover ahead of Chinese New Year. Digital red envelopes, which are electronic cash packets that come as a gift, are extremely popular among WeChat’s users.
However, Tencent has not disclosed how many corporate clients are using WeChat Work, only saying that the number increased 100% in 2018.
Alibaba’s mobile workplace coordination app Dingtalk gained five million corporate clients by September 2017.
36Kr is KrAsia’s parent company.
Contact the writer at jingli@kr-asia.com