Tencent to monetize its short video business with a new paid subcription service...

Tencent to monetize its short video business with a new paid subcription service on its super app WeChatTencent

Tencent to monetize its short video business with a new paid subcription service on its super app WeChat

Aron Chen

posted on March 29, 2023 6:50 pm

Tencent will soon launch a paid subscription service on its super app WeChat that would enable content creators to charge consumers for watching certain videos.WeChat will allow content creators to set up a pay-to-watch video segment on Video Account also known Channels as part of Tencent's effort to monetize WeChat’s short video section.In addition to receiving tips from viewers, content creators have the option of accepting advertisements in the comment part of their Channels account in exchange for a share of the ad revenue, according to the companyTencent ran its first experiment with paid livestreaming in January 2022, charging customers around RMB 10 ($1.45) to see a live feed of an NBA game.While the company has not disclosed its most recent short video user statistics, data analytics company QuestMobile estimates that monthly active users on Channels reached 813 million in June of last year, surpassing the 680 million users on Douyin and the 390 million users on Kuaishou in the same month.Channels has launched a number of monetization strategies since its beta launch in January 2020, including live-streaming e-commerce, from which Tencent receives commission.However, Tencent is still trailing behind in the development of the paid service for short videos compared to competitors Kuaishou and Douyin, which have advanced their efforts in sponsored content.For example, Kuaishou reported 59.6 million paying members in the third quarter of 2002 and had a separate "paid content" section on its appIn a separate announcement, Tencent said that WeChat will also soon introduce a new question feature called Wenyiwen, which translates to "ask a question" in Mandarin. The function will compile excellent responses to frequent queries.More than 800 million people use Tencent's search tool on a monthly basis, and in 2022, search volume increased by 54% year over year, according to the company.