China’s giant game and technology firm Tencent is making a few moves to add to its growing stockpile of cash.
Tencent, whose recent stock market evaluation placed its worth at over $100 billion, is looking to provide new services for its 300 million users. Not only is it working to become a social network along the lines of Facebook and Twitter, but WeChat also plans celebrity wake-up calls and the ability to buy items through app-enabled vending machines.
A service allows users to pay 18 yuan ($2.94) a month to receive pre-recorded wake-up calls from celebrities, including Chinese actor Chen Kun, pictured above. Users will also have access to greetings, diary entries, photos and more. Of course, games are also part of WeChat, and one that’s expected to expand substantially.
In addition, users can download a special chat app to pay for bottled drinks, paying only a small fee of 1 yuan ($0.16) on top of the drink price. Hundreds of these machines are already available through Beijing’s massive subway stations.
Anyone interested in these services, however, will need to link their bank accounts to WeChat’s online payment system, Tenpay. There’s no word if they’re likely to see their way to the U.S. market, but it doesn’t look likely at the moment.
Source: Quartz
