中国新式的沟通工具

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced its intent to ditch the famous instant messaging tool, MSN messenger, and replace it with Skype everywhere in the world, except in China. Yet how long can MSN survive in China?

The 13-year-old MSN messenger has met its end in the global market. Though its services remain in China, it is not likely to turn the table.

27-year-old Meng Zhengyuan is among the earliest MSN users in China. She remembers its golden age.

Meng Zhengyuan, a bank employee in Beijing, said, “MSN was very popular as an office communication tool a few years ago, and many of my friends were using it. But in recent years, it’s been disappointing. Viruses, junk mails, advertisements, frequent disconnections. I didn’t feel the company were working to address these problems, so I dropped it.”

Many others have made the same choice. MSN, with over 300 million global active users at its heyday, has only one third left in 2012. In China, a mere 5 percent market share makes it non-comparable to its local competitor Tencent QQ.

The penguin has done a brilliant job in China. According to the company’s second quarter report, QQ has nearly 800 million active users in China. Every second, up to 167 million people are chatting through it. How did QQ manage to keep such a huge group of users?

Lisa Yang, Marketing Director at Tencent Instant Messaging Division, said, “I think the reason is that, over the past 14 years, we have made customers’ needs our top priority. We keep the functions of our instant messaging tools updated, from the original text messaging to group video conferencing. QQ also focuses on providing our customers a social platform for entertainment. Most importantly, we closely follow the trend of mobile internet services and guarantee our customers a smooth transfer from PC to smart phone."

But in recent years, the penguin has seen more and more competitors eyeing a share of the market. So far, there are about 10 major online chatting tools in China. Users have a wide range of choices.

Meng Zhengyuan said, “At the beginning I used instant messaging tools to send text messages, or make audio or video calls. Now I’ve got many choices. I chat to people on Sina Weibo by sending private messages. Fetion allows me to send messages on a computer to my friends’ cell phones. And when I’m tired of typing, I send voice messages through WeChat. ”

MSN’s fall in China has taught a lesson to the whole industry. Whoever fails on serving customers will lose the game. But this is certainly good news for customers. With the smart phones offering more and more features on the mobile internet services front, we can expect better products and services.