WeChat to help exports to China exceed €1bn

Some 30 Irish food and drink exporters gained insights into the mobile app WeChat at an interactive workshop hosted by Bord Bia.

A WhatsApp-style cross-platform messaging service, WeChat has more than 700m active users and is growing 35% each year. Half of these use WeChat for at least 90 minutes a day. The average WeChat user makes 50 transactions a month.

“In a Chinese internet with no Google, Facebook or YouTube, for most Chinese businesses, their WeChat account will be more important than their website,” said Matthew Brennan, who led the workshop; a WeChat expert, he is from the EU SME, an EU initiative helping companies seeking entry to Asian markets.