The company is currently looking to launch an office in the UK and another European country, alongside its existing presence in Italy, according to Bloomberg. Tencent, which has an established office in San Francisco, is also looking to grow its WeChat team in the US, targeting advertisers and payments providers.
WeChat, which also hosts payments and brand pages, has over 889 million users in its home country, yet remains largely unused outside of its home country. WeChat`s focus is now more on business-to-business, encouraging Western brands to sell products on the WeChat platform. The service is courting “high-value” brands in countries like the UK and Italy, while Burberry and Chanel are already high-profile clients on WeChat’s platform.
The average daily transactions of Tencent’s payment business topped 600 million a day in December 2016. Chinese consumers are using the service to pay for everything from ride-hailing to food takeout. According to Goldman Sachs forecast, 220 million Chinese tourists will travel overseas by 2025, up from 120 million in 2015.
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