24 August 2015.
The leading Chinese internet company Tencent has invested 50 million US dollars in Kik.
Kik is a social messaging app. It is particularly popular amongst Western teenagers, with 70% of users being aged between 13-24 years old and around 40% of American teenagers regularly using the app.
Tencent has a vast amount of experience in social messaging apps, having developed the hugely popular Chinese social messaging apps WeChat and QQ, which both have over 600 million monthly active users.
WeChat allows users to message one another, do online shopping, play games and order taxis, much more than the basic messaging service that Kik currently offers.
Kik hopes that Tencent's investment will help it to develop in the same direction, into a more complex and fulfilling app.
It will give Kik a boost against its main competitors: the Facebook Messenger app, WhatsApp and Snapchat.
