WeChat, the Chinese social chat app, has been made available to South African smartphone users in an already crowded market.
The app was released on Wednesday, February 13, for Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry platform.
“WeChat will be competing with WhatsApp and will only be successful if everyone can get their friends to migrate,” Samantha Fleming, Media Consultant for Afrosocialmedia, told News24.
The chat app shares aspects with similar services, such as BBM, in address book contact list sharing, but offers an edge with video calling abilities.
It includes a Look Around feature which can track friends through location abilities and new meetups between users via a mutual ‘shake’ option which can be switched on or off according to preference.
HumanIPO reported on prospects of a South African release as Murray International Holdings (MIH) appointed South African Brett Loubser as WeChat Africa specialist late in January.
