Google is continuing with its quest to test strategies in China with its latest release of WeChat mini program.
The US tech giant is strategically expanding its service to China’s top messaging platform WeChat, which is also used by the country to do mobile payments, food deliveries, and to pay bills, among other things.
Last year, Tencent – the name behind WeChat operations, added mini program services in the app architecture which allowed users to bypass app stores and install apps straight from the WeChat platform.
This move has made the app the prime distribution channel of China, which is also the reason why Google chose the platform to expand its business in China. The company has launched a game called Guess My Sketch. The app has been designed in the same line as Zynga’s Draw Something – a game that puts players into the team who then guess what the other team is drawing.
With Guess My Sketch, however, Google is adding a twist. The player is teamed up with AI to battle against friends’ and their AIs.
In order to expand into China Google has expanded itself to Mini-programs, which is practically its competitor. But the perks that expanding to China brings along with itself are enough for Google to make such compromises.
Guess My Sketch is not the first move that Google has made to expand into the nation.
Other Moves that Google is Making to Make its China Expansion Concrete –
- The brand recently launched a Mandarin version of Files Go device management app by joining hands with four third-party app stores of China
- Google has launched an AI lab in Beijing
- The brand is opening an office in Shenzhen, thus moving into the vicinity of Tencent, ZTE, and Huawei.
All these moves are hinting towards Google’s long-term plans of moving into the Chinese ecosystem after it was blocked in the country for redirecting China’s search result to the Hong Kong website.
Why is Google Focusing on China?
When it comes to the revenue that App Stores are generating it can be seen that the maximum currency is coming in from Asia. Now because Google Play Store is banned in the nation, it is losing out on the possibility of generating revenues that China market has to offer.
For the Apple App Store, the revenue coming in from the Chinese market accounted to over 10% of Apple’s global revenue and the app revenue coming in from Chinese apps were estimated to come with 270% growth number in only a matter of two years. In fact, China is one of the main contributors behind Apple doubling its revenue in H1 2018 as compared to Play Store’s Profits.
Now, since Apple is able to reap the benefits that the China market has to offer, Play Store, on the other hand, is losing on a huge potential. However, it is only on time to tell if Google would be able to get back in China’s good books now after playing by its rules.
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