China's Mobile Internet Messaging (IM) War, part 11: the battle is heating up

This is part 11 in this series. One can find the previous part (part 10) in this series here:

part 10 here

I am still keeping track of the weekly download statistics. The pattern I observed in part 10 is still valid. That is Netease/CHA (China Telecom)'s YiChat is still growing like crazy. Alibaba's LaiWang is a very strong grower. Sina's WeMeet is dying in front of our eyes.

In addition, there are two other new players that are getting into this space. One is from Shanda and another from a big retailer. But so far those two new players are not catching any traction at all.

Both Alibaba's LaiWang and Netease's YiChat had/will have major announcement. But first, some users statistics:

From the following article:

YiChat's super fast growth (in Chinese)

Netease's YiChat had already accumulated more than 30 million users. In addition, its user base are increased by 200k per day. Of all users accounts, 28% of them are daily Active account users. Thus, about 30*0.28 = 8.4 million users are using YiChat every day.

Considering YiChat starts operation on 8/19/2013, it is able to accomplish this feat in less than 2.5 months. I had never heard of any social networking product that are able to grow this fast out of the starting gate, anywhere.

But Alibaba is going all out for its LaiWang product. From the following article:

Alibaba is going all in (in Chinese)

Alibaba is offering all LaiWang users of free mobile data traffic cost for users in 4 major provinces. This trial will last 2 months for now. Alibaba would also likely to expand this free service.

Not to be outdone, Netease had just announced that it will have a major announcement on 11/8/2013. From the following articles:

Netease's major announcement (in Chinese)

(in Chinese)

(in Chinese)

The detail is still a little unclear. But it looks like CHA/Netease will expand the free data service offer for its YiChat users not just to all CHA users, but all users in China. It will also covers users from China Unicom (CHU) and China Mobile (CHL) users.

Of course, the cost of these free service is so large that is so far beyond what Netease can afford. Most likely, Netease is just alone for a free ride. Either the cost will come from CHA (China Telecom) or China Unicom and China Mobile will become partners of YiChat. We will find out more details on 11/8/2013.

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