Tencent’s WeChat is spreading throughout Africa through its association with South Africa’s media company, Naspers using it as a springboard for competing with Facebook’s WhatsApp. Starting from South Africa, It is now solidifying its base in West Africa. (Naspers acquired a 46.5% interest in Tencent Holdings Limited in 2001.)
It has now recruited former Airtel Manager, Okojie as its Regional Manager for West Africa. Ide, as he is usually called, used to be the Head of New Product Development in Airtel Nigeria.
He is also one of the co-founders of Mobile Monday in Nigeria.
WeChat (Weixin in Chinese) is a mobile text and voice messaging communication service developed by Tencent in China, first released in January 2011. It is the one of the largest standalone messaging app by monthly active users. As of Q4,2014, WeChat has 468 million active users.
Find more statistics at Statista
The app is available on Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Symbian phones, and there are also Web-based and OS X clients but these require the user to have the app installed on a supported mobile phone for authentication.
