WeChat's recent updates allow users to buy stickers online, download content and connect with friends.
"The new WeChat 5.0 moves the platform beyond a simple chatting app and enriches the user experience by being a truly mobile social platform," says Poshu Yeung, VP at Tencent, the company behind the WeChat app. "Users not only meet, chat and share moments, pictures and videos with friends and people they care about in an innovative and fun way, but they do it in a dynamic and intuitive fashion."
This comes as the cross-platform mobile messaging app surpassed 70 million registered international users.
WeChat 5.0 introduces Sticker Shop, a feature supported by online payment that allows users to download and pay for stickers via the platform. The upgrades include "Hold Together", a location-based service that allows users to find and connect with friends who are close to each other.
In addition, "Shake" and "People Nearby" (previously called "Look Around") connect users with just a simple touch of the screen. The "Adding Contacts" and "Quick Entry" functions have been revised to make things a little simpler, according to Tencent.
The upgrades also aim to make Facebook sharing easier and allow users to save sentimental messages.
"While WeChat users enjoy connecting with friends and meeting new people, WeChat's comprehensive privacy setting functionality allows users to limit and control who is able to communicate with them, view their information and manage how they can be found," continues Yeung.
"For added security and control, protection mechanisms such as the two-way authentication to initiate a chat, ability to hide contact details and create a 'black list' to block other users, and allowing users to turn off LBS features, means their fun is experienced only with people they trust."
WeChat 5.0 for iOS is now available for download, and 5.0 for Android will be available in the coming months.
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