微信月活跃账户突破10亿

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.

中国占主导地位的社交媒体平台微信(WeChat)的全球账户已经达到10亿，突显这一从通信到购物无所不包的服务还在继续扩大触角范围。

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.

旗下拥有微信的中国市值最高的上市公司腾讯(Tencent)首席执行官马化腾(Pony Ma)表示，该平台在上月的农历新年期间突破了这一里程碑式的数字。作为全国人大代表，马化腾在昨日出席人大会议开幕式的间隙发表了上述言论。

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

虽然马化腾说的是“用户”，但该公司发言人澄清说，这是指“用户账户”，而非个人。

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.

腾讯经常在其季度财报中提及“MAU”，这一术语通常指月活跃用户，硅谷公司用其突出自身的受欢迎度和覆盖范围。但腾讯所指的是账户，而非个人。例如，微信用户有时会注册多个账户，一个用于工作，另一个用于私事。

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

去年9月，腾讯公布微信用户账户同比增长15.8%。

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

市场研究公司eMarketer估计，去年，微信在中国的个人用户达到4.943亿。

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.

微信在中国应用市场占据主导地位。它既是一款在很大程度上取代了工作电邮的社交即时通讯应用，也是一个移动支付、电子商务、火车订票和博客平台，同时还搭载了众多其他应用程序。中国用户经常开玩笑称微信为一项公用事业。

“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.

专注于微信的咨询公司China Channel创始人马修•布伦南(Matthew Brennan)表示：“很大一部分(账户)增长很可能是来自海外，如东南亚、欧洲和美国。”

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

海外中国移民用微信与国内亲友保持联络。

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.

中国境外的零售商也开始使用微信直接向中国消费者销售：欧盟的中小企业中心最近推出了一项服务，帮助小型企业在微信上开设网店。

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等中国境外现有平台的人气，限制了微信的海外用户增长。作为Facebook旗下的即时通讯服务，WhatsApp去年7月表示，其全球月活跃用户达到了13亿。

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

使用微信可能遭受审查和隐私侵犯，也让外国用户忌惮使用这一平台。

Additional reporting by Yizhen Jia 贾一真补充报道