What you can find in the “9 cell grid” of WeChat Wallet interface are the highly valued self-owned and third party services. The already crowded “9 grid” is having a new addition.

Previously, AWTMT.com reported that Tencent will be providing insurance products on WeChat’s Wallet in the latter half of the year. Taiwan’s second largest financial company, Fubon Financial Holding, has struck an agreement with Tencent to provide the above-mentioned insurance products with its subsidiary in China, Fubon Insurance.

According to an internal staff from Tencent, they are currently applying for licenses from the relevant regulatory authority, and the launch of the said insurance products have been delayed due to the wait for the licenses. He/She also shared that the agreement is not merely restricted to financial plans that are commonly sold online, but also include a bigger segment of the insurance business, albeit less commonly sold online – life insurance.

The fact is that the agreement was kick-started in July this year. On 18^th July, Taiwan’s Vice Chairman, Mr Chua Ming Xing revealed that the company is setting up a company in Shenzhen together with Tencent, Fubon’s products or will be available on Tencent’s WeChat and other platforms. According to Mr Chua, the insurance products on WeChat will be provided by Fubon Insurance.

In addition, he also shared that Fubon is in the midst of applying fo an operating license in China, and the company has invested heavily in finance and manpower, and has sent 20 odd employees to Shenzhen for the preparations. At the same time, Fubon has gotten approval from the finance regulatory body to provide financial planning services by machines, and hope to launch an all-digital branch in China as quickly as possible.

Besides the agreement with Fubon Financial, Tencent has been working steadily on the online insurance industry in the recent few years, from investing in insurance companies to applying for insurance operating license on its own.

In 2013, Alibaba, Tencent and Pingan has established China’s pioneer online insurance company (Zhongan Insurance). The main business of the company is providing car, medical and online shopping insurance products for younger population in China, in collaboration with Internet companies. As of today, Ant Financial is the major shareholder, with 16.0403% shares, while Tencent and Pingan holding 12.0907% shares each. Zhongan Insurance will be listed in Hong Kong earliest by September this year, with a valuation of one hundred billion.

In August 2016, Tencent’s subsidiary company was involved in the setting up of Hetai Life Insurance, which is approved by China Insurance Regulatory Commission. Hetai Life Insurance is registered in ShanDong province Jinan city, with an initial capital investment of 15 billion RMB, Tencent and CITIC Guoan are both the major shareholder Hetai Life Insurance has positioned itself as an online portal for life insurance.

The company’s core online strategy includes the digitization of products and sales operations, win-win situation for both parties; digitization of services and operations management, going automatic, simplification, and digitally smart; using big data to set prices and personalization; ventures in the online insurance sales industry. Tairen Insurance started operations in February 2017 and Tencent’s sole subsidiary has forked out 15% of the capital investment.

According to Wall Street Journal on 23 January 2017, insurer AVIVA corporation, Hillhouse Capital Group and Tencent has agreed to establish an insurance company in Hong Kong, focusing on numbers insurance services, travel insurance, health insurance, online financial planning and other services.

As part of the agreement, Hillhouse Capital and Tencent will be acquiring partial shares of AVIVA Life (Hong Kong). After the transaction, AVIVA and Hillhouse will each have 40% of AVIVA Life (Hong Kong) shares, while Tencent will hold 20% shares.

According to reports, AVIVA is UK’s largest, the world’s fifth largest insurance conglomerate company. Established in 1696 with headquarters in London, AVIVA mainly provides life insurance and retirement products. It is one of the world’s top 500 companies, but its operations in the recent years had not been up to expectations. It had kickstarted re-organization and transformation in 2012, with a focus on digital prioritization and focus on its core markets.

In March 2017, Tencent has succeeded in venturing into the insurance intermediary role through its sole subsidiary Weimin Insurance

Through the frequent capital movement, Tencent has obtained two operating licenses – online insurance and insurance intermediary, and has ventured into financial plans and life insurance businesses. Looking at the current situation, Tencent should be venturing into even more aspects of the insurance business in the future. However, this industry is highly competitive, as many Internet companies have already joined in the game.

Looking at Alibaba, it has established Zhong An Insurance, together with Zhong Guo Ping An and Tencent, and is the largest shareholder. It has set up Ali Health Insurance company with Zhong Guo Tai Ping and Tai Ping Life Insurance, and provides online health insurance related services. Ant Financial has become the controlling shareholder of Guo Tai Insurance with a 51% shares.

As for Baidu, it has set up Bai An Insurance Company with Allianz and Hillhouse Capital. It has also signed a memorandum with Life Insurance. In addition, JD and Suning also has similar strategy.

According to the statistics from Oliver Wyman, the insurance premiums have increased from 1.4 trillion RMB in 2011 to 3.1 trillion RMB in 2016, with a 17% year-on-year increase. With regards to the trillion dollar insurance industry, the competition between online insurance companies will only intensify further.

China third-party online payment market overview Q1 2017

The gross domestic product (GDP) of China was 18,068.3 billion yuan (US$2,626.81 billion) in the first quarter of 2017, a year-on-year increase of 6.9% at comparable prices according to the preliminary estimates of National Bureau of Statistics of China.

The planting intention survey on 110,000 rural households showed that the planting area intended for rice went down by 0.3%; wheat down by 0.8%; corn down by 4.0%; soya up by 8.1%; and cotton down by 0.7%.

The output of pork, beef, mutton and poultry was 22.49 million tons, a year-on-year growth of 0.2 percent, among which the output of pork was 14.68 million tons, up by 0.2 percent. The number of pigs registered was 410.95 million, a year-on-year growth of 0.1 percent and 191.49 million pigs slaughtered, a year-on-year growth of 0.2 percent.

In Q1 2017, the year-on-year real growth rate of total value added of the industrial enterprises above designated size was 6.8%, 1.0 percentage point faster than Q1 2016; 0.8 percentage point faster than 2016.

An analysis by types of ownership showed that the value added of the state holding enterprises went up by 6.2% year on year; collective enterprises up by 0.5%; share-holding enterprises up by 6.9%; and enterprises funded by foreign investors or investors from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan up by 6.9%.

In terms of sectors, the value added of the mining dropped by 2.4 percent on a year-on-year basis, the manufacturing grew by 7.4 percent and the production and supply of electricity, thermal power, gas, and water grew by 8.9 percent.

The industrial structure continued to improve. The value added of high-tech industry and equipment manufacturing industry grew by 13.4% and 12.0% year on year respectively, 6.6 percentage points and 5.2 percentage points faster than that of the industrial enterprises above designated size as a whole, 2.6 percentage points and 2.5 percentage points higher than the whole of last year.

The sales-output ratio of the industrial enterprises above designated size reached 97.2%. In March 2017, the total value added of the industrial enterprises above designated size went up by 7.6% year on year, 1.3 percentage points faster than that in the first two months of 2017, or up by 0.83 percentage point month on month.

The index of national services production increased by 8.3% year on year, 0.1 percentage point higher than Q1 2016. Information transmission, software and information technology services, and transport, storage and postal services maintained high growth rates.

The growth rates of wholesale, retail trade, accommodation, and catering trade picked up considerably. In March 2017, the business activity index for sectors like retail trade, air transport, postal services, internet and software information technology services, monetary and financial services, capital market services, and insurance all kept within the expansion range of over 55%.

The investment in fixed assets (excluding rural households) was 9,377.7 billion yuan (US$1,361.35 bn) in Q1 2017, a year-on-year growth of 9.2%, 1.1 percentage points faster than the whole year of 2016, 0.3 percentage point faster that than in the first two months of 2017.

The investment by the state holding enterprises reached 3,308.7 billion yuan (US$480.32 bn), up 13.6%; private investment reached 5,731.3 billion yuan, up by 7.7%.

The investment in infrastructure was 1,899.7 billion yuan, an increase of 23.5%. The investment in high-tech industry increased by 22.6%, 13.4 percentage points faster than the total investment. The funds in place for investment in fixed assets in the first quarter were 10,608.1 billion yuan, down by 2.9 percent. The total investment in newly-started projects was 6,201.5 billion yuan, a drop of 6.5% year on year. .

The total investment in real estate development in the first quarter was 1,929.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 9.1 percent, 2.2 percentage points faster than last year, and 0.2 percentage point faster than the first two months. The investment in residential buildings went up by 11.2%. The floor space started was 315.60 million square meters, up by 11.6% year on year. Specifically, the floor space of residential buildings newly started went up by 18.1%.

The floor space of commercial buildings sold was 290.35 million square meters, up by 19.5%. The floor space of residential buildings sold was up by 16.9%. The total sales of commercial buildings were 2,318.2 billion yuan, a growth of 25.1 percent. The sales of residential buildings were up by 20.2 percent. The land space purchased for real estate development was 37.82 million square meters, up by 5.7 percent year on year.

The total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached 8,582.3 billion yuan (US$1,245.89 bn) in Q1 2017, a year-on-year rise of 10.0%, 0.4 percentage point less than the whole of last year.

The total value of imports and exports in Q1 2017 was 6,198.6 billion yuan (US$899.85 bn), an increase of 21.8% year on year. The total value of exports was 3,326.8 billion yuan, up by 14.8%; the total value of imports was 2,871.8 billion yuan, an increase of 31.1%. The trade balance was 454.9 billion yuan in surplus.

The export of mechanical and electronic products increased by 15.1%, accounting for 58.1% of the total value of exports. The imports from and exports to some countries along One Belt, One Road went up. The exports to Russia, Pakistan, Poland, Kazakhstan and India increased by 37.0%, 18.7%, 19%, 69.3%, and 27.7%.

The consumer price in China went up by 1.4% year on year in Q1 2017, 0.7 percentage point less than the same period of last year.

The national per capita disposable income was 7,184 yuan (US$1,042.9), a nominal growth of 8.5% year on year or a real growth of 7.0% after deducting price factors. The growth rate of income was 0.1 percentage point higher than that of GDP.

The per capita disposable income of the urban residents was 9,986 yuan (US$1,449.66), a real growth of 6.3 percent after deducting price factors. The per capita disposable income of the rural residents was 3,880 yuan, up by 7.2 percent in real terms.

The per capita income of the urban residents was 2.57 times of that of the rural residents, 0.02 less than the same period last year. The median of the national per capita disposable income was 6,067 yuan, a nominal increase of 6.7 percent.

The per capita expenditure nationwide was 4,796 yuan, a nominal increase of 7.7%, or 6.2% after deducting price factors.

By the end of February, the number of rural migrant workers was 172.53 million, which was 4.54 million more than the same period last year, or up by 2.7 percent. The monthly income of migrant workers was 3,482 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.4 percent.

Some economists think official Chinese economic data understates performance using data on satellite-recorded nighttime lights as an independent benchmark for comparing various published indicators of the state of the Chinese economy.

“Alibaba economy” to generate about 30% of all jobs in 2035

The total e-commerce transactions of fund market in China is estimated to reach 11.2 trillion yuan (US$1.63 trillion) in 2016; it’s estimated to double the current amount to 26 trillion yuan (US$3.78 bn) in 2020.

The total insurance premium of China online insurance market totaled 360 billion yuan (US$52.4 bn) in 2016 with an increase of 132.6%.  It’s estimated to reach 935 billion yuan in year 2020.

Total transactions of China’s P2P loan market were 1.5 trillion yuan (US$217 bn) in 2016, with an increase of 70.8% from the previous year; and, it’s estimated to continue fast growth and reach 4.5 trillion yuan (US$654) in 2020.

This article is an excerpt from CIW E-Book: China Internet Insights 2017

Related whitepaper: China Internet Statistics 2017

Monthly active users of WeChat reached 762 million as of March in 2016 and has become a major platform for social communication.

Many brands have signed up WeChat official accounts to make it a channel to communicate with target audience according to a report from Lvyouquan. The report covered 8,006 brands and 294,176 official account posts in 18 industries published in Q3 2015.

80% official accounts published posts on working days. 36% posts are published on Wednesday and Friday. Over 40% official accounts published posts between 4pm and 7pm to attract readers who would skim through WeChat in buses or subways after coming off work at 6pm or 7pm .

The number of average post views on Friday were 3,449 among 294,176 posts according to the survey. Many users were likely to read articles after getting up between 6am and 7am, the peak time for news reading. After coming off work, 7pm to 8pm was also the reading rush hour.

Among the 18 industries surveyed, over half of the brands in network operators, e-commerce, air flight, automobile, apparel, gaming and smartphone industry had WeChat official accounts. Over 80% of operator brands utilized official accounts to cultivate consumers and potential customers.

Most official accounts released less than 10 articles in each month. Brands official accounts in the health care industry, supermarkets, insurance and automobile updated content most frequently. 60.79% health care brands released an average of 20 to 31 passages in each month while the quality index was the lowest. Official accounts of catering, gaming and banking had the highest quality index.

Xiaomi received the highest quality index among the smartphones official accounts, followed by Vivo and Huawei. Seven of the top eight high-quality smartphones official accounts were domestic brands.

Among the top 10 banking WeChat official accounts, seven were credit card accounts. Xiaomi put much effort in media and marketing every year that it received the highest quality index.

64.71% automobile brands had official accounts while the quality index was only 450. SVW, Volvo China, and Buick were top three accounts with the highest quality index.

Over 57.37% gaming brands had official accounts and the quality index was fairly high. 29% content from gaming official accounts were on gaming gift packs while readers were more likely to read articles on gaming announcement compared to gaming gift packs.

Smartphone industry official accounts published 37% posts on product publicity and 19% on promotion information. They also released content on chicken soup while few readers were interested in those.

Influenced by the third-party payment methods, banks have searched new means for more consumers. 36% content on banking official accounts were on promotion, 23% on the brand news, and 5% on chicken soup. However, the average views of promotion and chicken soup articles were higher.

Over half of automobile brands passages were on the brand news and product publicity, 15% on promotion, and 8% on automobile knowledge. However, automotive official accounts should publish more articles on promotion for readers prefer reading posts on promotion.

Companies are not the same in industry, size, resources, background and others. Thus brands must make full use of their own resources and publish posts basing on readers preference and reading habits. And  companies should adjust content and publish time of official accounts to improve quality index and improve the brand awareness.

Also read: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts

Online insurance in China maintained strong development and online insurance premiums grew by 169.5% to 72.8 billion yuan (US$11.25 billion) in 2015 according to iResearch.

With the increasing awareness of the importance of insurance in China, more Chinese consumers purchase insurance online due to the convenience. Online insurance premiums in China is expected to exceed US$100 billion in 2018 according to iResearch.

Also read: China Online Banking Market Overview in Q4 2015

In 2014, Tencent’s mobile revenue reached 22.171 billion yuan (US$3.571 billion) with popularization of WeChat. Now WeChat and Weibo are the two most active mobile apps in China. WeChat is a relatively new app compared with Weibo, but it far surpassed weibo in the number of users and monthly usage.

WeChat has become an important part of China mobile users’ life, and it has influenced their daily life from many aspects. It can take the role as an instant messeger and social networking platform. People can communicate with others whenever they like, and share with friends what they did, what they like, what is interesting…WeChat Official Accounts contribute a lot in this process.

WeChat official accounts integrate closely with friends circle; 20% WeChat users read news or messages through Official Accounts while 80% others would read in Moments. When shared more frequently, it would be read more. According to iReseach, 6 messages/articles were read by WeChat users on average per day; 4% WeChat users even read 20 and more per day.

Official Accounts take the role as connecting-to-all, people could connect with news, companies or services by following Official Accounts (including service accounts, subscription accounts) or Enterprise Accounts.

Nearly half of WeChat official accounts users had 6 to 15 official accounts. Most users regard it as a useful tool, and they can use it according to their own interests. 88.9% users are willing to recommend Official Accounts to their friends or families, and almost 99% users will follow more official accounts.

WeChat are gradually improving itself; new features allow users to pay for goods, taxes, services, and connect with computers, videos and etc in an easier way. For example, translation of WeChat Moments posts, fast sending photos while in chat, and importing chat history to new photos. In China, almost 330 million people on average use WeChat every month, of which WeChat Official Account users have taken up 79.3%. With the development of mobile internet and convenient mobile equipment, users spend more time on WeChat surfing or communicating. Advertisers could seize this opportunity to popularize their products.

Automotive advertising is active on the platform of WeChat. Recently, many automobile advertisements have appeared on WeChat, users’ comments and sharing could help them reach more users. WeChat Traffic, an official acount of WeChat, which can provide instant search of road traffic, vehicle violation inquiry, traffic cameras and so on, has become a typical platform for automotive advertising. Here are some comparisons between WeChat Traffic and other automotive information applications.

WeChat Traffic and other Official Accounts have accumulated a large number of car owners who want to change or buy a new car.

Nearly 80% car owners pre-order car insurance through WeChat Traffic, far more than other accounts or apps. Nearly 70% of WeChat traffic users are male, and 93% of them are 25 years old or above. High education users make up of 78%, higher than others.

With new development and improvement in WeChat, more users would be attracted to WeChat and official accounts, which could be a good opportunity for advertisers.

Read more: How WeChat Drives Viral Marketing of Local Specialities

Alipay is actively expanding its business into insurance businesses with new version 8.2 offering four types of insurance packages.

Right now, Alipay mobile users upgraded to version 8.2 can see four insurance packages: one health insurance, two related to travel, and one charging only RMB 19.9 (USD 3.2) with one year’s insurance on mobile phones’ screens.

Some internet users comment that only when the screen is damaged the second time, Alipay insurance covers. Alipay has not yet comments on this.