WeChat: The world's second-largest messaging platform

WeChat has become China's primary news platform

With an estimated 1.4 billion users worldwide, Tencent's messaging app WeChat has become the most effective distribution channel for news within China. As the company has grown, legacy media in the country have moved onto the platform, representing six of the top 10 WeChat accounts.

How Tencent became one of the world's most valuable social network firms

With 1.4 billion users on WeChat, Tencent passed Facebook in 2018 in terms of market capitalization ($580B as of May 2025). However, while Facebook relies almost entirely (98%) on advertising for revenue, Tencent's growth relies on diverse revenue streams from video games, e-commerce, and more.

'Red envelope' payments spurred WeChat's financial services growth

What started as a messaging platform morphed into much more with the advent of so-called red envelope payments, where friends, colleagues, and acquaintances recreate an age-old Chinese custom with the tap of a finger. The viral custom helped WeChat expand its digital payment services, effectively becoming a “superapp.”

A quick history of Tencent

The Chinese tech firm grew from a late 1990's internet messaging service to a globally influential conglomerate. It was China's first company to hit the $500B valuation mark, and now enjoys massive reach via WeChat, WeBank, and its robust investment portfolio.

What's the difference between QQ, WeChat, and Weixin?

Tencent owns QQ, Weixin, and WeChat—three separate apps serving different users. QQ launched in 1999 as a youth-focused messenger. Weixin (for China) and WeChat (international) are technically the same app, but split to comply with regional regulations, especially around data and payments.

Meta has reported WhatsApp users send over 100 billion messages daily

Across 180 countries and 60 languages, approximately billion users use the messaging app every day, with about 400 million in India, WhatsApp's biggest market. In some countries, the app has gone beyond messaging, enabling users to schedule doctor's appointments, conduct real estate deals, and provide direct-to-consumer sales.

As of 2025, Meta Platforms Inc. is the largest social media company in the world

Facebook alone has nearly three billion monthly active users, with advertising across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp generating 97% of Meta's revenue. Messenger adds more than 650,000 users a daily.

Tencent is the world's largest video game publisher

Despite mainly being known for its 1.4 billion WeChat users, Tencent has quietly expanded its video game empire to include more than 600 investments. These include 100% ownership of Riot Games (maker of League of Legends) and 30% of Epic Games (Fortnite), two of the most popular online video games.

Critics call WeChat a surveillance tool

This report from the Citizen Lab details evidence WeChat, with 1.4 billion users, is a powerful surveillance tool for the Chinese Communist Party. In particular, it finds the government uses non-China accounts to train censorship algorithms for use on domestic communications.

TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms of all time

Centered around user-generated short videos, the platform was created by the Chinese technology company ByteDance Ltd. With over 1.8 billion users, the app has become a global force.

Meet China's "VICs," or Very Important Customers

High-volume spenders power China's economy. Despite making up just over 10% of consumers, they account for about 40% of consumer spending. WeChat has focused on these spenders to supercharge the expansion of its digital payments and e-commerce services.

Tour Tencent's sprawling headquarters focused on tech and health

Tencent has a massive headquarters in China to match its sizable market capitalization. Featuring 40% less carbon consumption and emissions, the building features facial recognition for security, swimming pools and a fitness track, time management apps, and more.

Palm-scanning is the future of digital payments

Owned by Tencent, WeBank was China's first digital bank and services 340 million customers. Leveraging its parent company's technology portfolio, WeBank is determined to make palm-scanning the biometric equivalent of the credit card.

The next technology epoch is here

From ChatGPT to DALL-E, 2022 saw the mainstream emergence of artificial intelligence for consumer use. Here's how these platforms will disrupt today's five biggest tech companies—Apple, Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft.

The world's top streaming services (by subscriber count)

With almost 270 million paying users, Netflix is the dominant force in streaming entertainment. But after enjoying a first-mover advantage for years, competitors are beginning to catch up. Most notable is Amazon, which leverages its Prime subscriptions to bundle Prime Video, and has amassed an estimated 200 million users. See an updated tracker of the world's biggest platforms by audience.

X is a social media platform focused on real-time communication and content sharing

Users post and interact through short messages known as tweets. As of February 2025, X receives over 4.83 billion monthly visits, with users spending an average of 34 minutes daily on the platform.

At 12 years old, Mark Zuckerberg built a messaging platform for his family called 'ZuckNet'

Mark's family used "ZuckNet" to communicate with each other in different rooms and Mark's dad's dental office, which was connected to their family home. ZuckNet ultimately didn't go anywhere, as AOL's instant messaging platform soon replaced it.

How end-to-end encryption protects messages, even from service providers

Using symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, data is encrypted on the sender's device before being transmitted across application servers that lack the key needed to decrypt it. The message is not decrypted until it reaches the recipient's device, which uses their private key to recover the plaintext. E2EE's effectiveness has led to its adoption by WhatsApp and Signal.

'Planet Money' explains how Temu became one of the most downloaded apps in the US

According to some estimates, as of 2024, Temu was shipping as many as a million packages a day into the US, and was among of the most downloaded iPhone apps in the country with around 50 million monthly active users.

Ethereum is a blockchain-powered platform for building decentralized software and apps

Among crypto enthusiasts, ethereum is known for the cryptocurrency it uses to facilitate transactions: ether, or ETH. It's often compared to an app store. The underpinnings of ethereum's blockchain include dApps, which operate using automated scripts called "smart contracts."

The prototype for Tinder was created during a 2012 hackathon

By August 2012, Tinder, which was originally called Match Box, had launched on the Apple App Store. Match Group merged Tinder into its portfolio in 2017, the same year it set its sights on acquiring Hinge. Experts say that Match has not been declared a monopoly in part because monopolies are "hard to prove."

What we learned about Google

Google processes over 8.5 billion searches every day—more than the number of people on Earth. This short breakdown covers how the company evolved from a Stanford research project into a global tech leader, with products like YouTube, Gmail, and Android reaching billions worldwide.

BYD Auto is the largest EV maker in China, overtaking Tesla

As of 2023, the company has 40% of the electric vehicle market in China and produces more than 3 million EVs for customers worldwide. Its vertical integration, which includes building its own batteries and cargo ships, has allowed BYD to lower retail costs.

The WEF’s Edison Alliance connected more than 1 billion people to digital services

By 2024, the World Economic Forum-backed Edison Alliance had delivered digital connectivity and access to financial, healthcare, and education services to more than 1 billion people, using public-private partnerships across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the US.

Are emojis real communication? And other questions for the experts

Emojis took off around 2009, after Apple's operating system for its defining iPhone became available in Japan. By 2012, a standardized set of emojis was released, and now seven in ten users feel a message without one of the 3,664 official emojis is lacking.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail