China's leading messaging and social media app from Tencent Holdings Ltd. Launched in 2011, and often called an "everything app," WeChat is very versatile with more than a billion active users. It features add-ons ("mini programs"), games, video chat, a social feed like Facebook as well as photo sharing. Users can also access any Web app within the WeChat browser, and they can order merchandise, transfer money, hail a cab and pay bills electronically or in stores that accept WeChat payments. By 2020, China became a near cashless society in its large cities with Tencent's WeChat and Alibaba's Alipay, the two competing mobile payment platforms. See
Alipay,
text messaging and
everything app.