WeChat report unveils personality of users

Staying warm and cozy at home, ordering food delivery services and shopping online is an ordinary weekend for many people, according to an annual report released by WeChat.

Released at WeChat Open Class PRO 2020 last week in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, the report sheds some light on the app's users' interests and their content consumption behaviors.

As well as being a social network, it also allows users to make friends, count steps, shop online, share moments, book taxis, make restaurant reservations, read articles, play games and order food through its mobile payment system.

With more than 1.15 billion monthly users as of September, up 6 percent year-on-year, WeChat is one of the most popular messaging apps.

On the network, nearly 1 million users have friends' number up to 5,000, which is the limit for a user.

The active peak period of the app is before lunch and after work. After 8 pm is the active peak for online games, while after 9 pm is for reading.

The average number of steps per day on WeChat sports is 6,932, the report shows.

However, the number of steps for about 12 million accounts dropped to less than 100 in the weekends, which means that besides going to the toilet, these users stuck to their bed all day. About 64 percent of such users are female.

Delivery food services and online shopping are frequently used at the weekend for these users.

In the retail realm, people used WeChat Pay 5.8 times per month on average for purchases last year.

In the WeChat emoji ranking, face palm, open smile, snicker, thumb up and rose are among the top five.

In WeChat Moments where users can share their lifestream with friends, male users prefer to share things related to work or games, while female users share food or life.

The top domestic cities of WeChat Moments check-ins are Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Chengdu. And, the top five foreign cities are Seoul, Osaka, Jeju, Bangkok and Singapore.

WeChat mini program is a built-in app aggregator, which has more than 1 million such apps across over 200 industries. It saw transactions reach 800 billion yuan ($116 billion) last year.

The app users open their mini program four times per day on average. The daily active user number of mini program reached 300 million.

Women, younger than 29, prefer online shopping programs, and those aged 29 and above prefer entertainment ones.

This year, WeChat mini program will focus on empowering business ecosystems and opening up more capabilities for developers including livestreaming.

WeChat was launched in 2011 by internet giant Tencent. In 2014, WeChat Pay was unveiled and in 2017, the app launched its mini program.