WeChat Easy Taxi

WeChat partnerships outside China: 5 case studies

Thomas Graziani WeChat news

In a previous article published on our WeChat account we described how WeChat was driving its international expansion via focusing on East Asia and Africa as its first target growth markets. Today we will, through five examples, deep-dive on WeChat partnership strategy in seizing these markets: by partnerships with strong local and global players.

Easy Taxi in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines

The WeChat partnership with Easy Taxi will hardly seem surprising for those of us living in China: it is extremely reminiscent of the integration of “Didi dache” into WeChat.

WeChat and Easy Taxi have been working together since last summer when they launched the service in Singapore. The launch was a tremendous success, fueled by the same kind of promotional offers that led the growth of the service in China (discount on rides if using WeChat for booking).

WeChat Easy Taxi


This strategy has the double-advantage for WeChat to both increase usage rate of the APP itself, but most particularly of the payment system (wallet) which is the cornerstone of its long-term monetization.

Lazada accross South East Asia

The booming South-Eastern e-commerce platform Lazada just initiated a WeChat partnership to offer discounts on the platform.

Lazada just raised 250 million USD in funding to fuel its exponential growth, and WeChat is expecting to leverage this marketing push to promote its own platform.

Once again, such partnership is a good fit with WeChat monetization strategy as it is leveraging WeChat payment system.

Foodpanda in Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Philippines, and India.

The food delivery service Foodpanda launched a partnership with WeChat accross South East Asia. This partnership will enable WeChat users to get food delivered via their WeChat account.
wechat-food-panda
This type of services will also sound familiar to WeChat users in China. WeChat supported Foodpanda in the integration of WeChat payment and other third-party payment system to their public accounts.

Radio host Gareth Cliff in South Africa

Radio host Gareth Cliff picked an innovative model to promote its radio show in South Africa: he simply put it all on WeChat.

The WeChat partnership enables for the audience to listen to Gareth Cliff’s show directly on the WeChat public account. This innovative model enables a better interaction between users (who can share with their friends about the show) and with the presenters to whom they can raise direct questions by voice or text messages.

Buzzfeed in India

WeChat managed a substantial marketing coup by striking a deal with Buzzfeed in India. Through this deal, Buzzfeed will use and push WeChat as one of its mobile channels.

Given the broad popularity of Buzzfeed abroad, this partnership is a way for WeChat to have an established channels encouraging users to download the APP. Buzzfeed will on its side leverage the mobile nature of WeChat in order to develop its presence on messaging APPs.

Share the WeChat wisdom!

Elevate your China Marketing with AI-Driven Analytics and Creativity. Let’s Talk.