Suning to launch instant message app Yunxin

Chinese leading home appliances retailer Suning Commerce Group Co will launch its instant message app Yunxin no later than November 8, the company said Wednesday.

Yunxin is an instant message service which supports text messaging, voice messaging and group talk, Suning said, noting Yunxin is designed to serve Suning's customers and suppliers.

Yunxin will be launched before November 8 and customers can contact Suning's suppliers and after-sales service through Yunxin, a PR representative told the Global Times Wednesday on condition of anonymity. He added that the new service is part of its development plan of being an Internet company.

Media reports compared Yunxin with Wechat, which is the most popular instant message app in China. But Suning said the company is neither doing a comparison nor commenting on it.

Wechat has become so successful that now many companies want to get involved, Lu Jingyu, an analyst from iResearch, told the Global Times Wednesday.

Wechat has more than 600 million users, according to unnamed sources, domestic leading news portal sohu.com reported on October 23.

Internet service portal NetEase Inc released its instant message app Yixin on October 19. Yixin told the Global Times Tuesday that it has attracted more than 30 million users.

It will be very hard for new instant message apps to compete with Wechat, Lu said, noting it is difficult to change people's habits.

Tencent Holdings Ltd has a natural advantage in the social networking field because it started business with QQ, the most popular instant message software in China, Lu said.

As such there was no barrier for users move from QQ on computer to Wechat on cellphone, noted Lu.

A large number of people have a stable social network on Wechat, Lu said, so if competitors do not offer anything attractive, users have no reasons to move to new apps.