Wechat in China—How Did It Succeed So Welland Where Will ItGo From Here?byTeam 2April, 2016IntroductionSince the beginning of the 21st century, the mobile Internet is gradually invading life in China. Get up in the morning habitually look at mobile phones news. The phone in the hands of young people is not just the phone, you can also watch movies online, play games, and even when the walkie-talkie. Accelerated pace of life, less and less time talking heart to heart, the expression of emotion through the mobile Internet has become many people‟s demands. In this context, in January 2011, a smart phone application called Wechat on the line in China, only two years later, more than 300 million users registered in it, which is a huge success(Zhang Shu, 2015).Wechat is a smart phone applicationbyTencenttTechnology (Shenzhen) Company limited created and put in to market in January 21, 2011. Wechat is a free instant messaging service application. It can make people quick to send voice maeeage, video, pictures and text by phone. In addition, Wechat‟s version is updating constantly and updating period is fast. As a rising star in the mobile phone instant messaging area, Wechat became a leader in the smart phone application in China, which people marvel (Huang He, 2015).Due to the development of Wechat, more and more people in China are now communicating with each other through Wechat.Additionally,Wechat development team must continue to improve, keep the number of Wechat users and prevent Wechat users losing due to the high demand for mobile phone. Hence, this paper addresses the factors about Wechat‟s success and the external factors like the rapid development of mobile Internet, internal factors like high quality research anddevelopment of Wechat and determines the best methods to answer these factors that analysis where it will go from here (Zhou Huihui, 2015).Literature reviewWith the rapid development of mobile Internet, people can search the Internet easily and it promotes the usage of various mobile apps. The combination between mobile Internet and smartphone makes a great change inpeople‟s lives. The development of material and technological conditions are the precondition and basing of domestic network development. It drives the production and development of Wechat. The mobile Internet laid unprecedented material and technological conditions for Wechat and promises a board prospect (GuoHuaijuan, 2015). The production of Wechat follows the trend of Internet. The growth of the mobile Internet let Wechat can be popularized rapidly.With the increasing spread of smart phones, nowadays people prefer to use phones instead of PCs while surfing the Internet. The smartphone is influencing our lifestyle habits. Smartphone penetration rate in China reach more than 90% in 2015(Zhou Huihui, 2015). Huge smartphone users drive the net growth of network users, which creates a large number of potential customers and form a large potential market for Wechat. Instant messaging software has been widely used in the smartphone users. These provide a favorable environment for the development of Wechat(Zhang shu, 2015).In early 2011, instant messagingsoftware from foreign operators hasalready appeared on the market, which made more and more young people noticed and using it. Andeven they began to rely on these phones due to instant messaging brings the convenience to people, which took the users basis for Wechat development.And then in China, many large Internet companieshave been developing the similar products for occupied the market. This situation gave the consumers to cultivate the habit of using this kind of instant messaging software, which also took the potential users group for Wechat.Wechat is not the first product took into the market, but Wechat develops step by step and finally become a leader in this field.Obviously, Wechat‟s successis inseparable with predecessor…s instant messaging market development (Zhang Shu, 2015).In modern society, every person almost is busy. They don‟t have so much time to contact each other for a long time, and text message is not free at all.Then instant messaging becomes very important, because it can keep communication with each other. Also the Internet is into people's lives now, Tencent QQ is installing in mobile phone, which was a huge success.But QQ also can't meet the demand of human communication. When Wechat made Tencent QQ friends and contracts in the mobile phoneturning into one product, using Wechat can communicate with all friends anytime and anywhere, which meetthe willingness to communicate (Fang Zhixin, 2015).TencentTechnology (Shenzhen) Company limited is not known for pioneering because the most successful Tencent QQ ideas come up from MSN and other similar products. But it has stood in the top products due to Tencent‟shigh-quality research and development.They are inseparable. From the pointof view of imitatingindigenous, Tencentrealizes how the product could be most suitable for Chinese customers.Each product thatTencentdeveloped and imitatedis keeping the original design ideas. At the same time, it turns the ideas of matching Chinese using habits into the design. Those ideas make the customers who may not know about the latest product looking forward to the product than before (Wang Yuhao, 2015).Wechatis very good at in detail and function, which attracts the users in early. In the added product improvements, each version of the Wechat has outstanding innovation in terms of quality (Liao liao, 2016).At the beginning, Wechatwas setting up on the exchange of acquaintances, main communication free of charge. And in the subsequent innovation, Wechatkept the original function and added location-based services, moments, shake and so on to meet people's entertainment mentality, which let people using WeChat and got the psychological and sensory stimulation and build a social circle.From the data results, every times when Wechat updates could bring the fast rising in number of users. Wechat team know about the users want to update at any time, they has been sticking to collect users feedback and Wechat‟sdevelopment is focus on people's demand of entertainment life. It is one of the important reasons for the success of Wechat(Zhang shu, 2015).The free of charge about mobile communication by Wechat, although it cannot be done in the true sense, it still needs to be calculated to mobile Internet traffic charges without Internet. Compared to the high-cost, one to one exchange and the simplifyway to pass information of mobile phone text messages, Wechat has some advantages such as low-cost, cross-shaped objectives exchangeand presentation of diverse. Besides, Wechatusers can build the chat group to share news with their own wishes. It is more convenient and fast than text messages with them (Liu Yang, 2015). In the early stage of development, Tencent‟s high-quality team and enough funding ensured the "non-original" good idea that could be came true successfully. Wechat‟s product team spent only two months from setting the project to the products was on-line.Wechatattracted a large number of potential users relying on the promotionby Tencent QQ and Tencent mail. TencentTechnology Company Limiteduses its powerful user‟s resources to integrate new business. QQ, as the most Chinese-user instant messaging software, has more than 600 million active users. QQ users who are in high demand to instant messaging tool have a strong curiosity to new things. They are willing to try, which fits well with the main produc t‟s position of Wechat to attract young people to use smartphones. While based on the brand and reputation of Tencent, users would promote the acceptance and recognition of its new products, which made promotion of Wechat be in an advantageous position (Zhang Wen, 2016). MethodologyParticipants and design of researchBasing our theory in how Wechat succeed did with the factors, the best approach to solve the research problem is through conducting interviews and surveys within Wechat users. The participants would include Wechat users, the managers of Wechatand developer of Wechat. First, we will conduct the surveys on Wechat users.Wechat users would be limited to those who have been used Wechat at least two years or who use Wechat more than 8 hours a day in their current life. We will prepare the survey questionnaire and put it on the websites, and send the link to the participants. Second, we will email the managers who have been worked in Wechat more than two years and solicit their agreements, later we will conduct an interview with them. If we can access the person who is one of the founding team of Wechat would be better.InstrumentsTo gather data for this study, an electronic survey e-blasted to the selected participants while a face-to-face or phone interview for managers. The user survey would be divided into two parts: central information, product features evaluation and satisfaction evaluation. Description of survey noted as:•Central information–four questions:participants‟ identical information, time used Wechat per day, the reasons of using Wechat, main functions that you often use Wechat.•Product satisfaction evaluation - participantsthinking of using Wechat on a ten point scale (one worst–ten best) and evaluating its functions, especially the experience satisfaction of users.Manager and developer of Wechat interview could be face-to-face or through phone, talking about the changesaboutWechatand its future development. Description of interview noted as:•ChangesaboutWechat - talk about the currently development of Wechat for theseseveral years and how it affects our daily life.Future development of Wechat - talk about the future development of Wechat, for example, product features updates, conquer oversea marketing, promote user‟s experience of using Wechat and so on.Data collection, processing and analysis resultsThe survey would be extended electronicallyand ensuring data authenticity.Data extraction would generate the actual responses to all the questions and include the frequencies or distribution of responses for each question and cross tabulations.The data would be showedthe functions of Wechat are popular with users,and the problems of Wechat. The result would be posted on the web, which is for understanding the ways how Wechat did succeed in China and the development of Wechat in the future and making Wechat improving.LimitationsThe study will be limited to those Wechat users and Wechat managerswho have been worked in Wechat more than two years, and not everyone would involve due to the number of investigations is too big. These results may not be on representative of the other without using Wechat or all of the people's view. The response rate may not represent all the Wechat users if there is a very low response rate.ConclusionFrom what have been discussed above, Wechat did succeed so well in Chinaby the external factors and internal factors. The external factor is the popularization of smartphones dependent on Internet besides the earlier exploitation to the market andthe demand for human communication.The internals count on Wechat's supreme research and development,constant innovation,the advantage of telecommunications and the support from Tencent (Zhang Shu, 2015).Wechat is one of thousands of mobile Internet applications and a small logo on the mobile phone, but this logo represents the achievement of creative and wisdom of Tencent. It is not only Wechat spreads a new and “free” call way technically but also creates a world without strangers as interpersonal communication in China.At the same time, where Wechat will go from here while Wechat did succeed in China so well. Wechat development team will focus on the overseas market. Wechat faces not only the competitors from similar product, such as Facebook or Whatsapp, but also face many tough obstacles in the future –different national cultures, different using habits and the developing cost (QiuDaoyong, 2016).Therefore, Wechatdevelopment teamcan interact with consumers, drawing on observations and recommendations, answer their questions, and so on. They also should find the right position and reduce the cultural friction (Yang Bo, 2016).ReferencesLiao liao. (2016). What are the main factors of WeChat's success.Retrieved April 5, 2016, from: https:///question/20147618/answer/14128328 QiuDaoyong. (2016). Wechat changes the world.Beijing: China Fortune Press.Vol. 11(2), p25-35.Zhang Shu. (2015). What is the reason why Wechat get from success.Retrieved April 8, 2016, from: /p-3186763133407.htmlHuang He. (2015). The study of Mobile Media Business Models. Beijing: Communication University of China Press.Vol. 24(16), p45-49.Wang Yuhao. (2015). 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