What is the biggest social media platform in China?
China's richest man is behind the country's most popular social media platform, WeChat, which boasts approximately 1 billion users.
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Billionaire Pony Ma is the CEO of Tencent, the Chinese tech company that runs WeChat. The app is also known as Weixin, which means "micro message."
Pony Ma Huateng, chairman and chief executive officer of Tencent Holdings Ltd., attends China (Shenzhen) IT Summit at Wuzhou Guest House on March 25, 2018 in Shenzhen, China. (Photo by Visual China Group via Getty Images/Visual China Group via Getty
WeChat, founded in 2011, quickly expanded from messaging to include video calling and social media.
In the same way, parent company Tencent has expanded into gaming, mobile payments and entertainment. The company has spun off its music streaming business to partner with Spotify. Forbes estimates Tencent's market capitalization at $509.7 billion.
WeChat's biggest competitor is WhatsApp, a similar service bought by Facebook in 2014 and used by an estimated 2 billion people.
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WeChat displaced another Chinese platform, the microblogging service Weibo, to become China's favorite app. WeChat enables users to hail taxis, store their IDs and shop online, according to BusinessofApps.
However, Americans may want to think twice about downloading the app. The University of California warned students traveling to China not to use WeChat because of the case of Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen being held in Russia.
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"While the use of WhatsApp, WeChat and like messaging apps are legal in China, we have seen in the latest espionage charge of a U.S. citizen in Russia where the use of WhatsApp has been cited in his espionage charges," a U.C. official wrote in a 2019 email according to CNN.
A man wearing a mask to curb the spread of the coronavirus walks past replicas of the Terracotta Warriors outside a restaurant in Beijing on Wednesday, July 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
The university officials said they did not recommend using the apps in China because
"Our concern here is the possibility China could use this condition similarly against western travelers to levy charges or as an excuse to deny departure," the email continued. "We recommend not using these messaging apps in China at this time."
Meanwhile, U.S. politicians and officials are warning Americans about other Chinese apps including TikTok, which is known as Douyin in China and used by hundreds of millions of people there.