Number of WeChat Users (2013–2023)
Launched in 2011, WeChat ranks among the most popular messaging apps in the world. Even though it’s still not as widely used as WhatsApp, the number of people using WeChat is definitely on the rise, and it may be only a matter of time before it becomes the top messaging app worldwide.
How many people use WeChat?
The latest data shows that as of Q2 2023, there were over 1.3 billion WeChat users worldwide. This marks a marginal 0.6% quarterly increase.
The number of people using WeChat has been increasing year after year. At the end of 2011, barely a year after its launch, it hit 50 million users. Just two years later, it increased its user count by more than seven times, growing to 355 million.
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The rapid rate of increase in the number of WeChat users continued in the following years, and the app eventually crossed the one billion mark in 2018.
From 2013 to 2022, the number of WeChat users grew at an average annual growth rate of 16.5%, with the fastest growth coming in the first few years. From 2013 to 2017, the average annual growth rate registered at 29.8%. This slowed to 5.9% for the period between 2018 and 2022.
Zooming in to look at quarterly data, the only two times the number of people using WeChat decreased were in the fourth quarter of 2012, when it fell 23.3% from the previous quarter, and in Q2 2022, when it dipped by a marginal 2%.
Number of WeChat users in China
Owned by Chinese company Tencent, WeChat was first launched in China. With other popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger blocked there, it’s no surprise that WeChat is, by far, the most popular chat app there.
So then, how many people use WeChat in China?
The latest statistics show that in 2023, there are 827.2 million WeChat users in China, which accounts for 58.9% of the total population. In other words, more than half of the population in China uses WeChat at least once a month.
WeChat usage in China is experiencing a similar growth trend, with the number of users expected to increase every year between 2021 and 2025. According to analysts’ forecast, by 2025 there will be 864.8 million people in China using WeChat, representing 61.4% of the population.