WeChat advertising to generate huge income for Tencent   

騰訊開發微信朋友圈廣告功能 年收入或可達百億

1月21日，一個名為“微信團隊”的微信號出現在用戶的朋友圈中，其發布了6張圖和鏈接，形式與普通朋友圈基本一致。右上角注有推廣標志，即“由贊助商提供的推廣信息”，用戶可以點擊“我不感興趣”屏蔽該條廣告。有消息稱，騰訊在2014年三季度對朋友圈廣告收入進行過評估，評估結果是年收入為100億元左右。 [查看全文]

(ECNS) -- Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's biggest social networking firm, has launched an advertising service via its hugely popular mobile messaging app WeChat, which has 600 million users.

This service is expected to generate 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) for its parent company, sources said.

A large number of WeChat users on Wednesday received the first advertisements via their WeChat Moments, by which users share information with friends in a similar way to Twitter and Facebook.

The advertisements launched by the "WeChat team" can automatically be added to a user's friend list and is operated by Tencent Holdings to display ads with the account label.

Advertisements intelligently target users based on their preferences and communities, and users can opt to block them should they not be interested, according to Tencent Holdings.

Marketing via mobile Internet platforms was first adopted by Twitter in July 2011, followed by Facebook and other local social websites, namely microblog and Qzone.