Tim Culpan, Columnist

In Tencent’s Future, It Won’t Be the Humans Who Chat

WeChat can transition from a platform that connects people to one that links businesses.

January 11, 2019 at 12:00 AM UTC

Tim Culpan is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology in Asia. Previously, he was a technology reporter for Bloomberg News.

Niche market.
Photographer: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg

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Apple Inc.’s biggest competitor in China isn’t Xiaomi Corp. or Huawei Technologies Co. It’s Tencent Holdings Ltd.

Industry observers have known for a while that Tencent’s WeChat, including its Mini Programs platform, has the potential to displace the App Store. And its OS-agnostic nature means that users can easily swap from device to device, even across operating systems.