We Chat, the Chinese social media smartphone app, saw an increase in user numbers of 41 per cent year on year to 500m at the end of 2014, in a sign that parent company Tencent is extending  its reach for the mobile internet. Revenue grew 24 per cent to Rmb20.98billion, slightly higher than forecasts, driven mainly by online gaming revenues. It is unclear how much WeChat contributed to Tencent's revenues but the app's growth is a strong indicator of the company's long-term health as it tries to adjust its business to be more suitable for mobile devices. "We extended our leadership in games and online media, and made breakthroughs in emerging platforms such as online security . . . and mobile payments," Ma Huateng, Tencent chairman, said in a statement. WeChat is the second highest ranked app in China, behind QQ, Tencent's other chatting app, which claimed to have 815m registered monthly users at the end of 2014. However, that figure is more than the total number of internet users in China, which the government puts at 640million. Tencent has been unwilling to earn money through WeChat by flooding it with advertising, which could reduce efforts to increase the user base. But this is expected to change. Some analysts predicted that advertising would be introduced on later this year. Early attempts to test ads on the service have not always gone smoothly. After a BMW ad was introduced on some users' feeds in January, many users complained of "discrimination" by Tencent's data mining algorithm. They said it unfairly considered them as not wealthy or successful enough to view the sought-after BMW ad. What is the main driving force of the Tencent's income growth?
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