微信月活躍賬戶突破10億

China’s dominant social media platform WeChat has reached 1bn accounts worldwide, highlighting how the service that is used for everything from communication to shopping is continuing to extend its reach.

中國占主導地位的社交媒體平臺微信(WeChat)的全球賬戶已經達到10億，突顯這一從通信到購物無所不包的服務還在繼續(xù)擴大觸角范圍。

Pony Ma, chief executive of Tencent, the country’s most valuable listed company which owns WeChat, said the platform had hit the landmark figure during last month’s lunar new year festival. He made the remarks on the sidelines of the opening of China’s parliament yesterday, to which he is a delegate.

旗下?lián)碛形⑿诺闹袊兄底罡叩纳鲜泄掘v訊(Tencent)首席執(zhí)行官馬化騰(Pony Ma)表示，該平臺在上月的農歷新年期間突破了這一里程碑式的數字。作為全國人大代表，馬化騰在昨日出席人大會議開幕式的間隙發(fā)表了上述言論。

Although Mr Ma referred to “users”, a company spokesperson clarified this meant “user accounts”, not individuals.

雖然馬化騰說的是“用戶”，但該公司發(fā)言人澄清說，這是指“用戶賬戶”，而非個人。

Tencent often refers to “MAUs” in its quarterly reports, a term that typically means monthly active users and is used by Silicon Valley companies to highlight their popularity and reach. But the Chinese company is referring to accounts rather than individuals. WeChat users sometimes register multiple accounts, for example, one for work and another for personal use.

騰訊經常在其季度財報中提及“MAU”，這一術語通常指月活躍用戶，硅谷公司用其突出自身的受歡迎度和覆蓋范圍。但騰訊所指的是賬戶，而非個人。例如，微信用戶有時會注冊多個賬戶，一個用于工作，另一個用于私事。

The company reported annual growth in WeChat user accounts of 15.8 per cent last September.

去年9月，騰訊公布微信用戶賬戶同比增長15.8%。

Market research firm eMarketer has estimated that WeChat had 494.3m individual users across China last year.

市場研究公司eMarketer估計，去年，微信在中國的個人用戶達到4.943億。

The service dominates China’s app market. It is used as a social messaging app that has largely displaced work emails, but also as a platform for mobile payments, ecommerce, train bookings and blogs, as well as being host to a universe of other apps. Chinese users often jokingly call WeChat a public utility.

微信在中國應用市場占據主導地位。它既是一款在很大程度上取代了工作電郵的社交即時通訊應用，也是一個移動支付、電子商務、火車訂票和博客平臺，同時還搭載了眾多其他應用程序。中國用戶經常開玩笑稱微信為一項公用事業(yè)。

“Much of the growth in [accounts] is likely to have come from overseas, in south-east Asia, Europe and the US,” said Matthew Brennan, founder of WeChat-focused consultancy, China Channel.

專注于微信的咨詢公司China Channel創(chuàng)始人馬修•布倫南(Matthew Brennan)表示：“很大一部分(賬戶)增長很可能是來自海外，如東南亞、歐洲和美國。”

Chinese migrants abroad use it to keep in touch with those at home.

海外中國移民用微信與國內親友保持聯(lián)絡。

Retailers from outside the country are also starting to use it to sell directly to Chinese consumers: the EU’s SME centre recently launched a service to help small businesses create WeChat online shops.

中國境外的零售商也開始使用微信直接向中國消費者銷售：歐盟的中小企業(yè)中心最近推出了一項服務，幫助小型企業(yè)在微信上開設網店。

However, growth in WeChat use overseas is limited by the popularity of existing platforms outside China such as WhatsApp. The Facebook-owned messaging service says it reached 1.3bn MAUs globally last July.

然而，WhatsApp等中國境外現有平臺的人氣，限制了微信的海外用戶增長。作為Facebook旗下的即時通訊服務，WhatsApp去年7月表示，其全球月活躍用戶達到了13億。

The possibility of any censorship and privacy violations on WeChat has also made foreign users uneasy to use the platform.

使用微信可能遭受審查和隱私侵犯，也讓外國用戶忌憚使用這一平臺。

Additional reporting by Yizhen Jia 賈一真補充報道