A WeChat logo is displayed inside TIT Creativity Industry Zone where Tencent office is located in Guangzhou, China May 9, 2017. Picture taken May 9, 2017. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
HONG KONG: In a cluster of refurbished Mao-era industrial buildings in Guangzhou, developers at China's top messaging app, WeChat, are redesigning key parts of its product to spread its tentacles to just about every aspect of Chinese life.
Around 1,500 developers, mainly twentysomething males, have been tasked with increasing user engagement through new 'mini-programs' on WeChat that look and operate much like apps on Apple Inc's iOS and Google's Android operating systems – but are far less data-intensive.
