QQ Pets will be shut down next month. It was never WeChat that defeated Tencent QQ.

On February 16, 2005, the number of concurrent online users of Tencent QQ exceeded 10 million for the first time.

On June 6 of the same year, "QQ Pet" was officially launched. In just one year, the maximum number of concurrent online users of QQ Pet exceeded 1 million, making it the largest online virtual pet community.

This cute pet not only accompanied a generation of QQ users as they grew up, but also witnessed the heyday of QQ.

Now, this cute pet will completely exit the stage of history, and it will officially cease operations on September 15, 2018.

Coincidentally, 2018 is destined to be a year in which “the past cannot be recalled”. Yahoo MSN was shut down on July 17, and NetEase Blog will also be shut down on November 30, which means that the blog era is gradually coming to an end.

Someone said: "There are no eternal products on the Internet. Even the most brilliant products have their own life cycle."

According to Tencent's financial report, the number of monthly active users of QQ in 2017 dropped by nearly 100 million compared to 2016. The 2018 semi-annual report shows that the number of monthly active users of QQ fell by 5.5% year-on-year compared to 2017, and the number of QQ Spaces fell by 9.5% year-on-year.

Most of the products that were once active and glorious on the PC side are heading towards the end. How long will the life cycle of QQ, which is already 19 years old, last? In 2003, Tencent launched QQ for mobile phones. Why did WeChat eventually take the lead and become the king of mobile social networking? Who is slowly killing QQ?

How long have you not logged into QQ?

"I hardly use QQ nowadays. Basically, all my social activities are done on WeChat. Friends, colleagues, and family members who I contact frequently basically all use WeChat. I occasionally open QQ just to transfer files, or I will log in to QQ and use the screenshot function when I use the computer, because QQ shortcut keys are very convenient for screenshots." Xiao Liu, a media person born in 1993, told reporters.

"I use it when I discuss cooperation with clients, but sometimes I also do it on WeChat. This has to do with the client's habits. The frequency of use of the two is about the same, but I almost never use QQ in my daily life." said Xiao Shi, an Internet practitioner born in 1995.

The post-90s generation used to be the main force of QQ users. In order to upgrade more suns than their friends, they would secretly stay on QQ from morning till night. They would buy yellow diamonds to decorate their space, and then use cool space decoration to show off that they are yellow diamond nobles.

"We drifted apart as time went by." Unknowingly, QQ has drifted away from most people born in the 1990s, and even those born after 1995 are moving away from QQ.

"Our school's group notifications generally use QQ, but I personally use WeChat more often because more people are using WeChat now. However, some friends still use QQ to contact each other, but the general trend will still shift to WeChat." Xiao Feng, a college student born in 1998, said.

Why did people who used QQ 10 years ago abandon it 10 years later?

"QQ is a product that operates in a gamified way, which is in line with people's usage habits ten years ago. When people had nothing to do and plenty of time, they could play and socialize at the same time," said Ge Jia, an Internet analyst. "But now people's time is becoming more and more precious, and they need to socialize more purely and directly."

So it’s not that QQ has changed, it’s that users’ needs have changed, but QQ still looks the same as it did when it was young.

Unlike WeChat's "restraint", QQ has been adding new features to cater to young users. Entertainment-oriented tools such as QQ Show, Centimeter Show, Interest Tribes, face-changing effects, video chat filters, etc. have been attracting young people in various ways.

Xiao Yang, who was born in 2006 and is in junior high school, said: "I usually use WeChat more often. Now my friends also use WeChat more often. I use QQ to read comics and browse interest blogs."

According to Tencent's 2018 semi-annual report, as of June 30, 2018, the number of monthly active accounts on QQ smart terminals increased by 7.0% year-on-year to 708.6 million. According to Tencent, this was mainly due to the launch of new entertainment features and content that attracted young users. The number of monthly active accounts and daily active accounts on smart terminals for users aged 21 or below both achieved double-digit year-on-year growth.

However, by comparing Tencent's QQ monthly active account data over the past five years, Blue Whale reporters found that QQ's monthly active accounts dropped sharply between 2016 and 2017, with a drop of nearly 100 million accounts. According to the 2018 semi-annual report, QQ's monthly active users dropped 5.5% year-on-year from 2017, and QQ Space dropped 9.5% year-on-year.

Nowadays, there are countless entertainment-oriented apps on the market. Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, etc. can almost cover the functions of various entertainment-oriented tools provided by QQ. QQ, which is still struggling to be entertaining, can solve the urgent problem at the moment, but is it really a long-term solution?

It’s not WeChat that killed QQ, it’s this era

At 19:52:58 on March 5, 2010, the number of simultaneous online QQ users reached 100 million.

On January 27, 2010, the world's first iPad was released, and in June of the same year, the iPhone 4 was released. The era of mobile Internet has quietly arrived, and the Internet landscape has undergone earth-shaking changes. BAT has reshuffled, Tencent has entered the door of mobile Internet with WeChat, and Alibaba has also grabbed a place with mobile payment. However, Baidu has fallen behind in this wave, and TMD, which caught up, has unexpectedly become an Internet upstart.

In the era of mobile Internet, everything is changing rapidly.

On March 29, 2012, the number of WeChat users online at the same time exceeded 100 million, just 433 days after its launch. It took QQ nearly 10 years, Facebook 5.5 years, and Twitter 4 years to reach this number.

As we all know, Tencent launched QQ for mobile phones in 2003. However, it was WeChat, a small software that was not taken seriously within Tencent at the beginning, that finally conquered the mobile Internet.

According to Wu Xiaobo's "Tencent Biography", WeChat was initially launched on November 20, 2010 as a product similar to KIK, which was a social software for mobile phone address books at the time. WeChat was officially launched on January 21, 2011. However, the first product in China to imitate KIK was Xiaomi's MiTalk, and WeChat was launched one month later than MiTalk. MiTalk first launched the Android version and then the iPhone version, while WeChat first released the iPhone version and then the Android and Symbian versions.

According to the "Tencent Biography", for more than 10 years, the main consumer groups of QQ are college and high school students and urban young and low-income groups. WeChat users are the mainstream group of society, including almost all social classes, from senior white-collar workers, entrepreneurs, intellectuals to civil servants. The release of the iPhone version first may also be an important step for WeChat to occupy the market.

At that time, mobile QQ was still the main social tool for Android users.

"Mobile QQ is an extension of the idea of ​​PC QQ. QQ products have many functions, including membership, QQ Show, etc., but it is not suitable for mobile Internet." said an industry insider.

WeChat is a product of mobile Internet and is specially designed for mobile Internet. QQ's product design is no longer suitable for modern social characteristics.

"In the early days of mobile Internet, bandwidth traffic was very small. WeChat is a minimalist product that removed most of the functions of QQ, so it runs more smoothly and provides a better experience. As bandwidth increases and mobile phone performance improves, WeChat's functions are also gradually increasing. However, QQ missed the opportunity to adapt to people's usage habits in the mobile era." said Internet analyst Ge Jia.

Therefore, even if it is not WeChat, there will be software such as MiTalk and GuLiao to replace QQ's social status, because the mobile Internet era needs a product built for the mobile Internet. WeChat has grown faster and more solidly by diverting traffic from QQ's social relationship chain.

Is it more stable to walk on two legs? The gap between QQ and WeChat is gradually emerging

Before 2008, mobile QQ was a continuation of the PC version, retaining all the characteristics of the PC version. After 2008, smartphones with touch screens changed the way people interact with computers. QQ enlarged its size on the mobile interface, made the visual design more concise and clear, and made the functional design more centralized, reducing the accumulation of windows and making the functions more orderly. However, traces of the PC version still remain on mobile QQ.

Around 2013, mobile QQ became closer to the experience of mobile terminals, with the ability to share geographic coordinates, make online payments, make voice calls instead of telephones, and so on.

On April 1, 2014, QQ Mobile added QQ Wallet, officially entering the field of mobile payments.

At 9:11 p.m. on April 11, 2014, the number of QQ accounts online simultaneously exceeded 200 million, of which more than 70% were logged in through mobile terminals such as mobile QQ and QQ for Pad.

Ma Huateng posted on Tencent Weibo: "Congratulations to QQ for having more than 200 million concurrent online accounts for the first time tonight! Mobile QQ contributed the majority of the revenue, and it is still strong. It complements WeChat, competing and cooperating, each with its own mission and goal, and the two legs are more stable."

WeChat is becoming stronger and stronger, but it remains to be seen whether QQ can remain stable.

According to Tencent's 2014 financial report, the number of monthly active accounts on QQ smart terminals increased by 33% year-on-year to 567 million. Tencent has cultivated the ecosystem of QQ mobile users by integrating O2O and other new services and launching QQ mobile wallet. By enriching payment scenarios and launching activities, the total number of bank card accounts bound to QQ mobile wallet and WeChat payment has exceeded 100 million.

According to the 2015 financial report, the number of monthly active accounts on QQ smart terminals increased by 11% year-on-year to 642 million at the end of 2015. Tencent said that the QQ wallet payment service is very popular. During the 2016 Spring Festival holiday, the number of red envelopes sent and received through QQ wallet in just 6 days reached about 6 billion.

According to the 2016 financial report, the number of monthly active accounts on QQ smart terminals increased by 1.7% year-on-year to 652.5 million. QQ attracted 250 million users to sponsor red envelopes during the five-day Spring Festival event.

From the displayed data, we can see that the monthly active users of QQ mobile terminal increased by nearly 100 million in 2015, while the growth of monthly active accounts on mobile terminal weakened in 2016, increasing by only 1.7%.

"The red envelope activity is just a promotion for QQ. This promotion has failed to lead to a continuous increase in the number of QQ users. Instead, it has decreased. This shows that social relationships are shifting from QQ to WeChat," said an industry insider.

As social software, why can WeChat be used for mobile payment, but QQ cannot?

"Alipay is a payment service, and its purpose is payment. WeChat first did social networking, and then did payment in the social field. QQ's social relationships are no longer strong relationships. Many friend relationships are with strangers, so the payment amount will not be large." Ge Jia said.

WeChat registration can only use phone numbers and is linked to the address book. The first friends added are close people. Therefore, WeChat is more private and more personalized. Compared with QQ, users will feel more secure, which is more conducive to the promotion of WeChat payment. And mobile payment and other life tools have enhanced WeChat's user stickiness, inadvertently changing users' usage habits.

"Action inertia is a universal syndrome. There is no unchanging formula for success, and inertia is the biggest enemy of business growth." Donald Sull's words may explain why QQ is on the decline.