Tencent's all conquering social media platform WeChat released the 2019 WeChat Data Report during the 2020 WeChat Open Class in Guangzhou on January 9th. The report highlights the growth of users over the past year and the most used emojis.

With WeChat aggregating many different services into its basic functionality, the versatile app has become a digital ‘must’ for most Chinese and expats — people regard it not only as a communication platform, but a payment tool, information gateway and a source of entertainment — but data collected by the app can also reveal some interesting patterns in user behaviour, China Daily reports.

How many people use WeChat? According to the report, as of September 2019, WeChat's monthly active users have increased to 1,151,000,000, up by 6% year on year. According to last year’s report, the number was 1,082,500,000. That is to say, WeChat's monthly active users have increased by 68,500,000 (more than the population of the U.K.) in just one year!

Among the highlights:

* Monthly active users: 1,151,000,000

* Females prefer to share food/feelings

* Most popular domestic and overseas locations tagged in Moments

* Most used emojis

* Users with step counts fewer than 100 at weekends: 12,000,000

* 90s generation prefer to use WeChat small change wallet

And much more… read on!

Using stickers to express yourself has been all the rage for years with WeChat users, and now, after version 7.0.9 on iOS was released by Tencent on December 23rd, you can now spam your friends’ Moments to death with sticker comments!

What are the favorite emojis used by different generations on WeChat in 2018? How do netizens think of the most used emojis in 2019? See below:

So, what are your WeChat habits?

Author: Monica Liu

Editor: Simon Haywood

Graphics: wx-pai & Newsgd.com

Data source: 2019 WeChat Data Report