Tencent looks set to make more money from advertising after introducing a new ad slot into the WeChat Moments feed, 36Kr reports, based on information from an unnamed company insider and a third-party WeChat advertising agency.
This means WeChat users will now see three ads daily in their WeChat Moments feed, which is similar to the News Feed in Facebook. WeChat previously expanded ad load in Moments to two slots in March 2018, after first launching in-feed ads in Moments in January 2015.
WeChat counts over a billion monthly users, of whom 75% use Moments.
The move follows an ongoing restructuring at Tencent which seeks to reduce its reliance on gaming revenue, particularly given the Chinese government’s crackdown on the sector.
Last June, a senior Tencent executive said the company aims for advertising to account for up to 40% of total revenue in the next few years. The segment contributed roughly 20% to Tencent’s bottom line in both the final quarter and full year of 2018.
The company generated RMB 58.1 billion (USD 8.5 billion) from advertising in 2018, a 44% year-on-year increase, and RMB 17 billion (USD 2.5 billion) in Q4 2018, up 38% year-on-year.
Of this, social advertising, stemming primarily from WeChat Moments ads, accounted for nearly 70% of advertising revenue.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad
36Kr is KrASIA’s parent company