Tencent, the largest internet company in Asia Pacific and the third largest in the world, has announced reaching a new milestone of 200 million registered accounts on WeChat, its popular, free mobile voice and text messaging application. After announcing its popularity, with a strong user base of 100 million in March 2012, WeChat has now doubled its user base to a whopping 200 million registered users, within a short span of six months. Also, notable is the fact that WeChat has been generating over 700 million location-based activities along with other Tencent mobile products on an average each day.

“Mobile is great because it sticks to users wherever they go. Unlike PCs, mobile also has location features which bring about new industries such as O2O (online to offline) services,” said Pony Ma, CEO and co-founder of Tencent at a recently concluded Internet Conference in China.

“WeChat is now open for developers to leverage on the platform and we hope that all apps (even competing ones) can collaborate to provide a better experience for mobile users,” adds Ma.

WeChat’s ascension has drawn the attention of international brands looking to market their products in China. Just last month, Nike announced its first advertising campaign on WeChat. Starbucks and Cadillac are two of the other brands using WeChat for digital marketing campaigns.

WeChat offers its unique free voice message called “hold to talk” and free video call features. It is also engaging execellent group chat experience with free voice message, animated and custom emoticon and emoji art, customizable backgrounds, and a Rock-Paper-Scissors mini-game. The app also encourages creative expression by allowing users to apply artistic filters to their photos, create a personal photo journal, and share photos with friends. WeChat allows users to seamlessly connect with their social circles from phone contacts and Facebook.  People can also use location-based social (LBS) features to discover other members of the WeChat community. These features include ‘Shake’,  ‘Look  Around’ and ‘Drift Bottle’.

Recently, Tencent announced the new, feature rich 4.2 version of WeChat for Android users. WeChat is available for free download on Android, iOS, Windows and Symbian mobile platforms.

Tencent’s most popular global mobile product, WeChat was launched in India in July 2012 and has witnessed immense popularity since then.